Original Post: Unrestricted Access to Sensitive Business Flows — Web API Security Champion
The article discusses a case study on the "Damn Vulnerable RESTaurant API," focusing on the "Unrestricted Access to Sensitive Business Flows" vulnerability identified in its /orders API endpoint. This vulnerability allows customers to place unlimited orders, potentially overwhelming the system if exploited by malicious users. The article presents a proof-of-concept script to exploit this flaw by sending hundreds of order requests in quick succession.
To mitigate this issue, several solutions are suggested, such as accepting only prepaid orders, adding an ignore button for orders, limiting active orders per user, introducing customer trust scores, and disabling cash payment for new users. The recommended approach combines these strategies with additional customer validations such as phone number verification and protection against automated attacks.
Several preventive recommendations are also made: implement rate limiting and quotas, validate business logic, monitor API usage, and conduct regular code reviews. Automated detection of such vulnerabilities can be supported through tools like OWASP ZAP and testing frameworks like Nuclei, ensuring rate limiting and quota controls are effectively enforced.
Go here to read the Original Post