Web Application and API Security Testing
Web applications and APIs connect customers, employees, suppliers, mobile applications, cloud services, and business systems. They make digital services easier to access and integrate, but they can also expose sensitive data and important business functions directly to attackers.
A vulnerability may be hidden in the application logic, access permissions, session handling, API configuration, or the way user input is processed. Automated scanning can detect some of these problems, but it may not recognise weaknesses that depend on how the application is actually used.
Web Application and API Security Testing from CA helps you identify vulnerabilities before they are exploited. We combine automated assessment with manual testing and business-context analysis to understand how an attacker could misuse the application, access information, or interfere with a service.
Why This Matters
Web applications frequently process personal data, payment information, customer records, business documents, and authentication details. APIs often connect these applications to databases, cloud services, mobile platforms, and third-party systems.
A weakness in one component may therefore affect several connected services. An attacker might access another user’s account, obtain information without permission, change business data, bypass an approval process, or send unexpected requests directly to an API.
Effective web application and API security testing helps you:
Protect sensitive information
Identify weaknesses that could expose personal data, credentials, customer records, financial information, or confidential business content.
Prevent unauthorised actions
Test whether users can access functions, records, or administrative capabilities beyond their intended permissions.
Find weaknesses in business logic
Recognise ways in which legitimate application functions could be combined or manipulated to bypass an established process.
Reduce risk before release
Identify security problems during development, before an important update, or prior to making a service available to a wider audience.
Our Approach
We do not rely only on automated scanners. Automated testing is useful for identifying known technical issues, but it cannot fully understand user roles, business rules, approval processes, data relationships, or the consequences of misusing an application.
Our approach combines technical testing with an understanding of the service and its users. We assess the application, relevant APIs, authentication, access controls, workflows, integrations, and data handling as parts of one connected environment.
Testing is carefully planned and performed within an agreed scope to avoid unnecessary disruption to production systems and business operations.
Understand the application and define the scope
We begin by understanding the purpose of the application or API, the users it supports, the information it processes, and the business functions it provides.
We identify relevant websites, application components, API endpoints, user roles, authentication methods, administrative interfaces, third-party integrations, and connected systems. We also discuss which environments can be tested and whether any functions require special handling.
The assessment may focus on a new application, an existing live service, a major update, selected API functions, or a specific area of concern.
A clear scope makes the testing more relevant and helps ensure that important application functions and data flows are not overlooked.
Test authentication, access, and data protection
We assess how the application verifies identities, manages sessions, and controls access to functions and information.
Testing may examine account registration, sign-in, multifactor authentication, password reset, account recovery, session expiration, user-role changes, and administrative access. We also check whether users can view or change information belonging to another account, organisation, or customer.
For APIs, we examine how requests are authenticated and authorised. We test whether access controls are applied consistently across endpoints and whether changing request parameters could expose restricted data or functions.
We also review how sensitive information is transmitted, displayed, stored, and recorded in logs.
Assess technical vulnerabilities and business logic
We test how the application handles user input, files, requests, errors, and interactions with connected systems.
The assessment may include injection vulnerabilities, unsafe file handling, insecure configurations, information leakage, weak encryption, server-side request manipulation, cross-site scripting, and other application-level weaknesses.
We also test business logic. This involves understanding how legitimate functions could be used in an unintended order or repeated, altered, and combined to avoid restrictions.
For example, a user may attempt to bypass an approval step, reuse a discount, alter the value of a transaction, access another customer’s record, or perform an action after their permission should have expired.
Prioritise findings and verify remediation
We document confirmed vulnerabilities in clear technical and business language. Each finding explains the affected component, the conditions required for exploitation, the possible consequences, and the recommended corrective action.
Findings are prioritised according to their technical severity, ease of exploitation, affected information, user access required, and potential impact on the organisation and its customers.
We discuss the results with relevant technical and business teams so that the practical meaning of each issue is understood. Where appropriate, we also suggest temporary safeguards for vulnerabilities that cannot be corrected immediately.
After changes have been implemented, CA can retest the affected functions to confirm that the weaknesses have been properly addressed.
What Sets CA Apart
Manual testing beyond automated scanning
We investigate access controls, application behaviour, workflows, and business logic that automated tools may not fully understand.
Applications and APIs tested together
We consider how user interfaces, API endpoints, identity controls, integrations, and connected services interact.
Clear business context
We explain what a vulnerability could mean for your customers, information, operations, finances, and reputation.
Practical remediation support
Our findings include clear corrective actions that development, operations, and security teams can use.
The Business Value
Web Application and API Security Testing from CA helps your organisation identify vulnerabilities before they lead to data exposure, unauthorised activity, service disruption, or customer harm.
Development and technical teams receive clear information about where weaknesses exist and how they can be corrected. Prioritised findings help the organisation focus resources on the issues that create the greatest practical risk rather than attempting to treat every technical observation in the same way.
Testing can also support safer application releases. Security issues are identified before new services, major updates, or integrations are made available to a wider group of users.
Independent testing provides additional assurance to business leaders, customers, partners, and other stakeholders. It demonstrates that important digital services have been examined from an attacker’s perspective and that identified risks are being managed.
The result is a more secure and reliable application environment that supports digital growth without introducing avoidable risk.
Next Step
A web application may appear to work correctly and still contain weaknesses that allow information or functions to be used in an unintended way.
Contact CA for an initial consultation. We will help you define the appropriate testing scope, assess your web applications and APIs, and provide a practical plan for addressing the identified risks.