hunt-api-misconfig

To test an API for mass assignment and JWT vulnerabilities, you enumerate vulnerable fields and craft token payloads to detect privilege escalation and forgery conditions. This process validates untrusted field application and algorithm confusion in authentication flows to confirm exploitability.

Prototype pollution is a vulnerability where unsafe JSON object merging allows __proto__ injection to poison prototypes and reach sensitive sinks. Testing merge and parse behavior identifies these injection paths and confirms server-side exploitability through observable responses.

Validating CORS exploitability involves checking wildcard, null, or regex origin handling to see if credentialed cross-origin requests succeed. Verifying Access-Control behavior and preflight outcomes confirms practical cross-origin data exposure under attacker-controlled inputs.

Yes, you can detect HTTP verb tampering by testing for GET-bypass-CSRF, X-HTTP-Method-Override, and unsafe methods like TRACE. Identifying enabled methods that bypass access controls confirms endpoint exploitability across REST endpoints.

The best way to triage inconsistent API access control is to systematically test for mass assignment, JWT forgery, prototype pollution, and CORS credential leakage. Identifying the specific misconfiguration enables targeted remediation of privilege escalation or data exposure vectors.

Yes, this approach works for defensive verification by testing JWT-based authentication systems with realistic attacker-controlled inputs. Validating token parsing issues, algorithm confusion, and weak HMAC conditions confirms exploitability and strengthens defensive postures.