High 10 API Safety Testing Instruments for Cellular Apps

In keeping with Salt Safety’s 2024 State of API Safety Report, 80% of API assaults try to use a number of OWASP API Safety High 10 vulnerabilities. But, solely 58% of organizations prioritize safety in opposition to these well-known threats. This hole leaves many companies uncovered to cyber dangers that might have been prevented.

Investing in API testing instruments helps safeguard your cell software ecosystem in opposition to evolving threats. The most effective safety testing instruments scan all APIs in your ecosystem, whether or not public or inner and be sure that third-party APIs and microservices are completely examined for vulnerabilities.

Let’s take a look at just a few causes why you must spend money on an API safety testing software in your group. We’ll additionally discover the highest API safety testing instruments available in the market with their execs, cons, and pricing. 

Why is API safety testing essential for cell apps?

Cellular apps are the heartbeat of contemporary digital experiences, however are solely as safe because the APIs that energy them. One weak hyperlink in your API safety can expose your complete software—and your customers—to devastating cyber dangers.

1. Knowledge safety and privateness

APIs deal with your customers’ delicate knowledge, together with private, monetary, login credentials, and well being information. Poor API safety can result in unauthorized entry, exposing confidential info to cybercriminals.

2. Stopping account takeover

Weak authentication and authorization mechanisms can enable attackers to hijack accounts, resulting in id theft, fraud, and knowledge manipulation.

3. Enterprise continuity and repair availability

APIs are targets for Denial-of-Service (DoS) assaults, which may decelerate or crash providers and have an effect on consumer expertise and enterprise operations. Implementing fee limiting and entry controls helps mitigate these API dangers.

4. Repute and compliance dangers

A safety breach can injury an organization’s fame and erode buyer belief. Moreover, enterprises should guarantee compliance with rules like GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and ISO 27001, making API safety important to keep away from authorized and monetary penalties.

5. Increasing assault floor

The rise of microservices and third-party integrations will increase the variety of API endpoints, making them engaging targets for attackers. Guaranteeing safe coding practices, API monitoring, and common API safety testing is essential to decreasing API vulnerabilities.

6. Distinctive API vulnerabilities 

APIs introduce distinctive safety challenges that conventional net protections could not deal with. Shadow and zombie APIs which might be untracked or outdated endpoints create hidden vulnerabilities. 

Moreover, poor enter validation can enable injection assaults like SQL or XML Exterior Entity (XXE) exploitation. Addressing these dangers requires specialised cell API safety measures past commonplace net safety practices.

What to search for in an API safety testing software?

1. Accuracy

A robust API safety software should reduce false positives and supply exact vulnerability detection. This can be sure that your safety group focuses on actual threats as a substitute of spending time filtering via pointless alerts. 

Professional tip: Select high API testing instruments, like Appknox, that supply <1% false positives and negatives, the bottom within the trade. 

2. Complete protection

Your API safety software ought to present broad safety in opposition to threats, together with misconfigurations, enterprise logic vulnerabilities, and real-world assault simulations. 

Professional tip: The highest API safety testing instruments on-line should mix handbook safety testing with automated scans to carry out deeper API safety assessments. 

3. Scalability

Your API safety software should scale with your corporation because it grows. A dependable resolution ought to be able to dealing with massive API ecosystems, supporting a number of endpoints, variations, and purposes with out compromising efficiency or effectivity.

4. Automated vulnerability detection

A safety software ought to routinely detect essential API dangers, comparable to damaged authentication, extreme knowledge publicity, and injection assaults. Automation eliminates handbook effort and ensures vulnerabilities are recognized and glued earlier than they are often exploited.

Professional Tip: Appknox makes use of automated DAST to simulate real-world assaults, uncover hidden vulnerabilities, and strengthen your API safety with minimal effort.

5. Integration with CI/CD pipelines for DevSecOps

The API safety testing software you select ought to seamlessly combine into CI/CD pipelines, permitting for steady safety checks earlier than manufacturing. An excellent software ought to help platforms like GitLab CI/CD and Azure DevOps to allow automated safety scanning inside improvement workflows.

6. Compliance and regulatory help

APIs dealing with delicate knowledge should adjust to GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS. The best safety software ought to detect compliance gaps, assist implement safety controls, and generate audit-ready experiences to make sure adherence to trade rules.

7. Detailed reporting and real-time alerts

The best API safety software ought to present complete experiences with CVSS scores, remediation steps, and real-time alerts. This helps groups react rapidly to vulnerabilities and make knowledgeable safety choices.

High 10 API safety testing instruments in 2025 

1. Appknox

With a mobile-first strategy, Appknox is likely one of the greatest API safety testing instruments that leverages a mixture of automated and handbook testing to establish vulnerabilities comparable to damaged authentication, injection assaults, and misconfigurations.

The platform performs automated API discovery to make sure all mobile-connected APIs are detected and integrates Dynamic Utility Safety Testing (DAST) for real-time evaluation. 

With <1% false constructive charges, Appknox ensures extremely correct outcomes, decreasing pointless noise in your safety groups. Moreover, Appknox helps you keep compliance with trade requirements comparable to PCI-DSS, GDPR, and ISO 27001, making it simpler to fulfill regulatory necessities whereas preserving your APIs safe.

Key options

Automated API discovery  
Appknox scans cell purposes to establish all API endpoints, together with shadow APIs (undocumented APIs which will expose safety dangers). This reduces blind spots and helps you safe each API your app interacts with.

Dynamic API Safety Testing (DAST) 
Appknox integrates API safety testing with DAST to take a unified strategy to detecting vulnerabilities. This makes use of real-time testing to research API vulnerabilities by simulating real-world assault eventualities with out requiring entry to the supply code.

Guide penetration testing 
Appknox’s safety consultants conduct handbook assessments to uncover enterprise logic flaws, insecure authentication mechanisms, and authorization bypasses that automated scanners may miss.

Customizing API scans 
Appknox lets you customise API safety scans to suit your testing wants. You’ll be able to outline scan parameters, comparable to focusing on particular API endpoints, authentication mechanisms, or knowledge payloads to concentrate on essential areas. 

You can even regulate the depth of the testing, selecting between fast scans for widespread vulnerabilities and deep scans for superior threats.

Execs 

• DAST scans are finished on actual units, not emulators 
• Lower than 1% false constructive charges 
• Establish vulnerabilities in <60 seconds  
• Supplies detailed experiences that break down vulnerabilities with threat ranges that can assist you prioritize remediation efforts

Pricing 

Score
Gartner: 4.8/5

2. Burp Suite

Burp Suite is an API safety testing software designed each for handbook and automatic vulnerability assessments. It lets you intercept, modify, and replay API requests utilizing Burp Proxy and Repeater, which helps establish authentication flaws, injection assaults, and entry management points. 

The Burp Scanner automates the detection of API-specific vulnerabilities, comparable to CORS misconfigurations, uncovered API keys, and improper authorization mechanisms. In distinction, the Burp Intruder facilitates automated assaults to check fee limiting and parameter tampering. 

Execs 

• Burp Extender lets you develop and combine customized safety plugins, enabling superior API safety assessments.
• Internet-first software safety testing software 

Cons 

• Because it’s a web-first software safety testing software, it will not be superb for mobile-first apps.  
• Burp Suite doesn’t natively combine with CI/CD pipelines, making steady API safety testing tougher to automate in improvement workflows.

Pricing 

Score 

3. NowSecure 

Using a sophisticated dynamic check engine, NowSecure discovers all mobile-connected APIs, flags potential violations in opposition to the OWASP API High 10 requirements, and identifies unapproved “shadow APIs” that might pose safety dangers. 

Designed for complicated cell app configurations, NowSecure makes use of the NowSecure Workstation, a pre-configured system that performs API safety assessments utilizing open-source instruments like Frida and Radare. 

Execs

• The platform gives absolutely automated safety testing aligned with the OWASP API Safety High 10, decreasing the necessity for handbook assessments.
• Use of precise units as a substitute of emulators for scans 

Cons 

• Lacks handbook penetration testing for APIs, which is important for deeper safety validation 

Pricing 

Score 

4. Postman

Postman gives default safety guidelines based mostly on the OWASP API Safety High 10, routinely figuring out widespread vulnerabilities in API definitions and requests. 

Furthermore, you possibly can write check scripts and run automated authorization assessments and mocking to forestall regressions. The platform additionally routinely scans public API collections and documentation for delicate tokens (e.g., API keys, personal keys) and notifies customers of potential leaks.

Execs 

• Means that you can outline safety insurance policies utilizing Spectral-based customized guidelines, providing flexibility in API governance

Cons 

• Postman focuses on pre-deployment safety however doesn’t provide in-depth runtime safety evaluation. 

Pricing 

• Free:$0
• Primary: $19/consumer per thirty days 
• Skilled: $39/consumer per thirty days 
• Enterprise: Customized pricing 

Score 

5. OWASP ZAP

OWASP ZAP (Zed Assault Proxy) API scan is designed to carry out safety testing on APIs outlined by OpenAPI, SOAP, or GraphQL. 

You’ll be able to run the scan through a command-line interface with a number of reporting codecs (HTML, Markdown, XML, JSON) and fine-tune the method with varied choices, comparable to including customized guidelines, assault energy, alert thresholds, or working authenticated scans.

Execs 

• Open-source, free software 
• Runs in a Docker container, making it simple to deploy and run API safety scans with out putting in ZAP manually 

Cons 

• No updates or enhancements since it is a free software 
• Provides solely automated scans, no handbook safety testing to detect nuanced vulnerabilities 

Pricing 

Score 

6. Checkmarx

Checkmarx’s automated API discovery scans code repositories to establish all of the API endpoints and gives full visibility into the API panorama. 

The platform detects new or up to date APIs throughout code check-ins or compilations, making certain steady monitoring all through the event lifecycle. By evaluating the whole API stock in opposition to present documentation, Checkmarx detects shadow and zombie APIs to scale back hidden safety dangers. 

Execs 

• Makes use of risk-based evaluation to focus on essential vulnerabilities that can assist you concentrate on critical points first
• Supplies deep visibility into APIs by analyzing supply code, enhancing safety at a foundational stage 

Cons 

• Focuses totally on static evaluation and code-level discovery, making it much less efficient for runtime API habits evaluation
• Because it depends on static evaluation, it would flag points that aren’t precise safety threats in a real-world surroundings.

Pricing 

Score 

7. ImmuniWeb

ImmuniWeb gives API penetration testing, safety scanning, and steady monitoring capabilities that can assist you mitigate dangers and keep a powerful safety posture. 

Leveraging machine studying algorithms to conduct safety testing, ImmuniWeb gives zero false positives and lets you add API definitions in varied codecs comparable to Postman, Swagger, and GraphQL. 

Execs 

• Supplies a Service Degree Settlement that ensures zero false positives 

Cons 

• The absence of automated tagging requires handbook intervention, doubtlessly affecting workflow effectivity.

Pricing 

Score 

8. API Fortress

API Fortress is a steady testing platform that gives automated useful, efficiency, and safety testing for inner, companion, and third-party APIs. 

Moreover, its unified monitoring capabilities enable real-time oversight of API efficiency, serving to you to detect and deal with potential points earlier than they escalate.

Execs 

• Provides options for documenting APIs, thereby streamlining the method of sustaining and updating API documentation 

Cons 

• Some customers have reported efficiency points when dealing with very massive datasets or intricate check eventualities, affecting testing effectivity.

Pricing 

Score 

9. DataTheorem

DataTheorem takes a multi-faceted strategy, together with SAST, DAST, SCA, and customised testing to establish vulnerabilities in your APIs. 

Using black field discovery strategies with no need brokers or configurations, DataTheorem constantly screens APIs throughout multi-cloud environments, together with AWS, Azure, GCP, and personal clouds. 

Execs 

• Takes proactive measures comparable to encryption, bot safety, and assault prevention to guard APIs 

Cons 

• Implementing and absolutely using DataTheorem’s options could require a studying interval.

Pricing 

Score 

10. Astra Pentest

Astra Pentest performs a mixture of SAST, DAST, and steady API discovery to make sure a radical analysis of your API safety. The platform assessments your APIs in opposition to over 10000+ recognized vulnerabilities, together with the OWASP API High 10 to detect vulnerabilities. 

With an intuitive dashboard for seamless collaboration between groups and licensed safety consultants, you possibly can monitor vulnerabilities in actual time and prioritize fixes based mostly on potential affect.

Execs 

• Combines automated scans with handbook testing by safety consultants to uncover complicated vulnerabilities

Cons 

• Lacks customization choices in scan settings, limiting the power to tailor API assessments to particular wants 

Pricing 

Score 

TL; DR: Selecting one of the best API safety testing software 

To get began with API safety testing, you should utilize open-source/free instruments out there available in the market to detect vulnerabilities early within the improvement cycle. 

Nonetheless, should you’re an enterprise group managing an app portfolio of a whole bunch of dwell cell apps, you’ll want a extra sturdy API safety testing software like Appknox for proactive menace detection and response. 

The important thing highlights of Appknox as among the finest API safety testing instruments are: 

• Automate API discovery inside your cell purposes 
• Simplify workflows and take a cohesive strategy with DAST integrations 
• Run API safety scans on chosen APIs that align along with your testing aims 
• <1% false positives and negatives 
• Actual-time updates on a unified dashboard 
• Detailed experiences in <60 minutes
   

Join a free trial and strengthen your API safety with Appknox.