Setting up the context

You can assess yourself by checking how many of these application security interview questions are easy for you, how many need finetuning, and how many you have yet to learn and master. Everyone is learning, and a question is easy for you, but it doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. However, it depends upon the hiring manager and interviewer's role and expectations.

The question might look straightforward, but your answer speaks more about your hands-on experience in this domain. Try to analyze the question and answer honestly.

Many of the questions might not be relevant to your experience or role, as I am sharing mixed questions asked for various roles in the Application Security domain.

Also, I am not sharing questions on any programming language-specific or even programming-based security questions. That can be another series of questions in my next release.

First thing first

This interview question set is mainly for defensive roles compared to offensive roles, which are called “Penetration Testing or Web Security (sometimes it’s used interchangeably) “. I will concentrate more on how an application is developed, maintained, and deployed and how, as a security engineer, you would help an engineering team overcome security challenges.

Second important note

I am listing questions based on a few criteria:

1. Common to everyone who is in this domain or trying to enter this domain.
2. Some questions are theoretical, and you can use those questions as a starting point to assess the candidate’s overall knowledge.
3. Some questions are for senior professionals.
4. Some questions may have different answers depending on seniority level
5. Some questions can be to check your domain and leadership skills in this domain

One more thing

If you are new to this domain or planning to make a career in cybersecurity. You should see the study plan before delving into interview questions.

They are:

1. Common Skills Study Plan that you can finish within 3 months
2. 20 Essential books that you should read from security world
3. Application Security Study Plan (You must go through it before trying for appsec interviews)
4. You can’t ignore API security at present. So, here is your API Security Study Plan
5. Knowledge of Pentest will be an added advantage for you. Check this out: Web Pentest Study Plan
6. You can star or bookmark Security Study Plan which will give you an insight into what to study for various security domains.

This space will focus more on:

1. Secure Code Review
2. Threat Modeling
3. Secure Coding
4. Secure Development
5. And anything that is defensive in nature and developer centric. For everything else related to web security we have another page.

How the JD looks for Application Security role

Here is a JD of a product based company Rippling for a senior AppSec role

The above JD can give an idea that what are the concepts and skills you would need to get through.

If you are interviewing someone for Application Security Engineer role, could be juinor, senior or architect level. You can always start questions based on the person’s experience in AppSec. However, below questions can be always interesting and will help you to understand the candidate better technically. Soft skills, team player, presentation skills, communication skills are out of the scope of this space.

Application Security Interview Questions based on various aspects

Application Security Basics Questions

1. Explain your top 3 favorite OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities and why
2. How does TCP 3-way handshake work?
3. Why is TLS important in cybersecurity and can you explain the use of TLS in detail for a website?
4. How SSL/TLS makes my content secured over the internet?
5. What happens when you type google.com in your browser?
6. What’s the difference between SAST and SCA?
7. What is SQLi and how would you prevent/mitigate it?
8. Explain XSS with a few examples and how it can be avoided in the current software world.
9. How to avoid brute-force attacks on an application. Let’s say the login page. Explain everything that comes to your mind.
10. Tell us about a time when you had to learn something new really quickly and how did you go about it?

Application Security Role-based questions

1. Explain CORS, SOP, and CSP from security point of view
2. How is CSRF dangerous for an application and what must be done to prevent CSRF in an application?
3. Explain the concept of input validation and why it is crucial for secure coding. Provide examples.
4. How do you approach secure error handling and logging in an application?
5. Discuss the role of encryption in secure coding and some best practices for implementing it.
6. What are some best practices for managing secrets and sensitive information in code?
7. How do you ensure the security of third-party libraries and dependencies in your code?
8. What are the key differences between manual code review and automated static analysis?
9. Describe your approach to conducting a secure code review. What do you look for first?
10. Can you give an example of a security vulnerability you discovered during a code review and how you addressed it?
11. Which secure coding standards do you follow during a code review (e.g., OWASP, CERT)?
12. How do you balance between finding security issues and maintaining development velocity during a secure code review?
13. Describe the STRIDE threat modeling methodology and provide examples of each threat type.
14. How do you prioritize threats identified during a threat modeling exercise?
15. How would you integrate threat modeling into an Agile development process?

Overall Application Security Assessment-based Questions

1. Where do we need security in the SDLC phase?
2. What would you suggest for input sanitization?
3. What should a developer do for secrets management?
4. What are some strategies for ensuring secure session management in web applications?
5. How do you handle security misconfigurations in development and production environments?
6. Discuss the importance of least privilege and role-based access control in application security.
7. How do you ensure that logging and monitoring are implemented securely and do not expose sensitive information?
8. What are the challenges of implementing SDL in a fast-paced development environment, and how do you overcome them?
9. Describe the various phases of SDL and the security activities involved in each phase.
10. How can an attacker exploit SSRF and what an application developer must do to prevent SSRF? This medium article might help you to understand how to bypass SSRF protection.

Some common “test your problem-solving skills” Application Security questions (mostly for senior roles)

1. What step would you plan to ensure developers follow secure coding practices?
2. How would you make developers aware and involved in secure code development?
3. How do you handle typical developer and security clash situations?
4. What were your interesting findings in the secure code review?
5. What are the common vulnerabilities you have experienced so far?
6. How would you approach identifying and mitigating security risks in a large, legacy codebase that hasn’t been regularly maintained for security?
7. Describe a strategy to ensure secure coding practices in a multi-team development environment, especially when teams are working on interdependent components.
8. How would you implement and enforce a secure coding standard in a globally distributed development team?
9. How would you design a security strategy to protect a microservices architecture from both external and internal threats? What are the challenges you might face while designing and implementing it?
10. Describe how you would conduct threat modeling for a cloud-native application. What specific security concerns are most critical in any cloud native application?
11. Can you provide an example of how you have implemented SDL in a past project?
12. What are some key metrics you would track to measure the effectiveness of an SDL program?

Application Security Scenario-based interview questions

Consider this section as the toughest one and mainly for senior appsec professional.

1. How would you design a safe and secure password mechanism?
2. Can you explain the password hashing function and the importance of salt? Also, how salting and hashing passwords are used in this domain?
3. You use the SCA tool to find vulnerabilities in 3rd party libraries. How would you mitigate those vulnerabilities found and risks associated with third-party libraries and frameworks?
4. Your company is developing a new financial application that handles sensitive customer data, including banking information. Describe how you would approach threat modeling for this application. What specific threats would you consider, and how would you prioritize and mitigate them?
5. You are tasked with performing a secure code review for a web application that has been recently developed. During the review, you find several instances where user inputs are directly concatenated into SQL queries. Explain how you would address this issue and guide the development team to implement a secure solution.
6. A development team is working on a new feature that requires handling and storing user passwords. They plan to use a simple hash function (e.g., MD5) to store these passwords. As a security architect, how would you advise them on securely handling and storing passwords? Provide a detailed explanation of best practices.
7. During a code review, you discover that the application does not properly handle errors and exceptions. For example, stack traces are exposed to end users, which could potentially reveal sensitive information. Describe how you would rectify this situation and implement secure error handling and logging practices.
8. A critical vulnerability is discovered in a third-party library used extensively in your company’s application. Explain the process you would follow to assess the impact, communicate with stakeholders, and implement a fix. How would you prevent similar issues in the future?
9. You are designing the architecture for a new e-commerce platform that includes a web application, mobile application, and backend APIs. Outline the security architecture you would propose, including key components and technologies to ensure robust security across all layers.
10. How would you review an architecture to prevent an automated brute force attack or dictionary attack (think of different brute force attack techniques)?

Secure Code Review round with code snippets

Many companies won’t have this round, but I feel one should involve a few code snippets in an interview to check the candidate’s indirect coding knowledge from security point of view, at least for a senior role like a lead or staff role.

Insecure code snippets can be on a tougher note. However, I am adding a few easy ones for practice and to give an idea of how this round can be prepared well as per the JD.

I would give you a hint for your practice, but you won’t be given any hint in an interview.

1. Identify the security issue in this code snippet and explain how you would fix it. [Hint: Can you spot the CSRF issue here?]

<code>if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') {

$userId = $_POST['userId'];

$newEmail = $_POST['newEmail'];

updateEmail($userId, $newEmail);

}</code>

2. Identify the security issue in this code snippet and explain how you would fix it. [Hint: Insecure desrialization]

ObjectInputStream in = new ObjectInputStream(new FileInputStream("data.ser"));
Object obj = in.readObject();
in.close();

3. Identify the security issue in this code snippet and explain how you would fix it. [Hint: password hashing issue]

import hashlib

def store_password(password):

hashed_password = hashlib.md5(password.encode()).hexdigest()

save_to_database(hashed_password)

4. Which security issue it can cause? [Hint: XSS]

const userInput = request.query.userInput;

const output = "<div>" + userInput + "</div>";

response.send(output);

5. Most common question asked in a secure coding round. It doesn’t need a hint I suppose. What issue this code snippet would cause and how would you help the developer in fixing it?

String userId = request.getParameter("userId");
String query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE user_id = '" + userId + "'";
Statement stmt = connection.createStatement();
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(query);

Topics or concepts that are subjective and can check your in-depth knowledge regarding that area

1. What do you think about the good password?

This question looks very similar, but can help the interviewer to understand if the person has experience with password management related skills or not.

This question will help you to drill down to more specific questions to understand the competence of the candidate:

1. What is complex password
2. Should the password complexity be same for admin and user
3. How do you save the password in Database, encrypted or hashed or plain text
4. Do you use salt? Is it same for all the password? is it random in nature per user?
5. How do you make your code safe for password attacks?

2. How do you stop bruteforce attack on login/signup/forgot password page(s)?

This question helps you to understand if the person is aware of secure code development and secure design for such features and how far he/she can think. Check if the person talks about:

3. What happens when you type google.com on browser

This question is just to check if the person understands the behind the curtain scene like url to IP conversion, DNS involvement, server response and so on. Listen the interviewee and see if he/she mentions below things:

1. How DNS resolves the url
2. TCP 3 way handshake
3. How HTTPS work and what’s its advantages
4. How to prevent the application from MiTM (Man in The Middle Attack)

4. How SSL/TLS actually makes my content secured over the internet

This question is the extension of previous question to understand if the person understands:

1. How client server hello established
2. How key exchange happens i.e. public key or certificate
3. Is it symmetric or asymmetric encryption or both and when it is used
4. Talks about Certificate Signing Request (CSR)
5. What are weak ciphers and what are good SSL Cipher Suites
6. Able to use openssl command to see the details of ssl information
7. Can explain ssl format like this: TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
8. TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3 and why?
9. What is PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) and why it is used?
10. Why https enabled website still gets hacked?

5. How you would make developers aware and involved for secure code development?

This question would help you to understand if the person has delivered any training, presentaed slides, gave demo, delivered secure coding practices workshops. See if person talks about:

1. OWASP ASVS (Application Security Verification Standard)
2. OWASP Top 10 2017/2021
3. OWASP Secure Review with some examples
4. Secure Design Principles
5. Then you can go little deeper like what difficulties you faced while giving training to them on secure code design, principles etc.
6. How do you make sure developers follow what you taught or made aware? IDE plugin, git actions, SAST tools etc?

6. Which one would you prefer and why? Manual secure code review or automated or both ?

7. Which tools have you used for SAST?

8. What is the difference between SAST and SCA?

9. How well you understand SQLi (SQL Injection)?

See if the person is able to explain:

1. When data becomes code and how to test it
2. Any specific tool to fasten SQL Injection
3. Can you spot SQLi from code review
4. Experience of any SAST tool through which you can verify and validate SQLi
5. Mitigation for SQLi
6. Prepared statement in sql injection

10. Do you understand the key difference between encryption, hashing, salt, obfuscation and encoding?

11. What you should check if the website is damn slow suddenly?

12. Explain how do you handle AuthN and AuthZ?

An interviewer can assess whether the candidate has a robust and comprehensive understanding of both authentication and authorization, as well as their practical application in ensuring application security.

Depth of Understanding:

Does the candidate understand the fundamental differences and purposes of authentication and authorization? Are they able to explain common methods and protocols for both AuthN and AuthZ?

Practical Knowledge:

1. Can the candidate discuss specific implementations and technologies (e.g., OAuth, SAML, RBAC)?
2. Do they mention industry best practices and why they are important?

Security Focus:

1. Is the candidate aware of common security risks and how to mitigate them in both AuthN and AuthZ?
2. Do they highlight the importance of monitoring and logging?

Experience:

1. Can the candidate provide examples from past experience where they have implemented or improved AuthN and AuthZ mechanisms?
2. Are they able to discuss challenges faced and how they overcame them?

Current Trends:

1. Is the candidate up-to-date with current trends and emerging technologies in authentication and authorization?
2. Do they mention advanced methods like biometrics, adaptive authentication, or zero trust models?

13. How do you implement CSP? Do you think it adds extra security for a web application? How?

Go as much deep as you can. Use this article to understand details of CSP

14. Benefits of using SoP, CORS and CSP?

Explain the basics of these concepts with one or two real world examples. Also, explain why to use these and where with few scenarios.

15. How do you handle typical developer and security clash situation?

16. List out the techniques used to prevent web server attacks

Check what all points one can cover and then you can deep dive based on the answer:

1. Patch management
2. Web Server hardening
3. Scanning system vulnerability
4. Custom vs default port
5. Firewall and other server setting avoiding default settings
6. Proper alerting and monitoring mechanism
7. Server log settings

17. List out the steps to successful data loss prevention controls.

See if the interviewee is able to explain below points:

18. Where do we need security in SDLC phase?

19. What would do you suggest for input sanitization?

20. What have you done so far for API Security?

You can’t think of application security without API security at present. However, I will cover more on API security Interview Questions in another page.

21. Why XoR is very important in Crypto world?

It’s basic of Cryptography but untouched topic and I would recommend every AppSec engineer to go through basics of Cryptography.

22. How OAuth works?

23. What is SCA and how do you perform SCA?

24. What should a developer do for secrets management?

25. What is your interesting finding in secure code review?

Summary

I have tried to cover all the possible questions from basics to advanced from various topics under the AppSec domain like Threat Modeling, Secure Code Review, OWASP Top 10, Secure Design, Cryptography (basics), Overall understanding of application from a security perspective, dealing few scenarios with agile development, developers etc. All the best for your bright future and hope this set of questions would help you to excel in an interview.

I will try to add more security interview questions for specific role as well. Please share in the comments which one you want to see next. Some examples are Sr. or Lead AppSec Engineer, AppSec Architect, DevSecOps engineer, and Product Security Engineer role.

The updated version will be available at github repo

Further reading references:

1. Security Study Plan
2. Cybersecurity Career Roadmap
3. Security Interview Questions
4. Appsec Interview questions by appsecengineer team
5. AppSec questions by startup jobs
6. Questions from Synopsys

Follow us for cybersecurity guidance and study materials:

Here is the PDF version of the post that you can download for future purposes.

Originally published at https://www.aliencoders.org on July 1, 2024.

Application Security Interview Questions: Expert Guidance and Insights was originally published in Product Security on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Secure coding is critical for building resilient software and protecting systems against vulnerabilities. Here’s a list of top resources for mastering secure coding and secure code reviews to aid your journey.

These are the learning resources that I referred to while learning and performing secure code design and reviews.

Secure Coding Learning References

1. Introduction to secure coding: http://www.opensecuritytraining.info/IntroSecureCoding.html
2. Secure code review: http://www.opensecuritytraining.info/SecureCodeReview.html
3. OWASP Code Review Guide v2: https://www.owasp.org/images/5/53/OWASP_Code_Review_Guide_v2.pdf
4. Secure coding practice guidelines: https://security.berkeley.edu/secure-coding-practice-guidelines
5. Secure coding from Cybrary: https://www.cybrary.it/course/secure-coding/
6. Common API Security pitfalls: https://vimeo.com/289491341
7. HTTPs for developers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE0DJy_qGW8
8. Micro-services, let’s secure them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDLCfTLEeJU
9. OAuth, OpenID connect for microservices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdKmZ7mPNns
10. OAth and OpenID connect in plain English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=996OiexHze0
11. OAuth2.0, overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPbvxxslDTU
12. Nut & Bolts of API Security: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj03NRM6SP8
13. Web Security Fundamentals course from edx: https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:KULeuvenX+WEBSECx+3T2017/course/
14. SSL and HTTPS from MIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1OF_0ICt9A
15. GitLab security secure coding page: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/security/secure-coding-training.html
16. Secure Coding Guide by Apple: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Security/Conceptual/SecureCodingGuide/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002477-SW1
17. Secure by design principles by UK Government, Security: https://www.security.gov.uk/policy-and-guidance/secure-by-design/principles/

Secure Coding PDFs:

1. https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/latest/latest/en-us/sfdc/pdf/secure_coding.pdf
2. https://www.cs.montana.edu/courses/csci476/topics/secure_coding_principles.pdf
3. https://www.riscure.com/uploads/2020/03/Secure_Coding_Fundamentals_2020.pdf
4. https://infosec.byu.edu/https:/brightspotcdn.byu.edu/14/01/8f3a1be2450d9200c6e1ab9d9942/csr-and-dev-man-intro-to-the-secure-development-training-program.pdf
5. JavaScript Secure Coding: https://compliance.qcert.org/sites/default/files/library/2020-10/CDP-%20NIAF-SSQA-JSSCS%20-V1.1%20%28JavaScript_Coding_Standard%29_0.pdf
6. Secure Coding with Python: https://belitsoft.com/assets/python-security.pdf
7. From Secure Coding to Secure Software: https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/asset_files/webinar/2016_018_100_483661.pdf
8. CERT Secure Coding Standards: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg23/docs/ISO-IECJTC1-SC22-WG23_N0023-Secure-Coding-Standards.pdf

5 useful resources to start learning secure code review:

1. https://www.veracode.com/security/secure-code-review
2. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Secure_Code_Review_Guide
3. https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/secure-code-review-process-guidelines/
4. https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/secure-code-review
5. https://www.acunetix.com/blog/articles/secure-code-review-process/

Bugcrowd YouTube videos for API security:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBi3a-dXsM8
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYJ7ipSOplw

Security Checklist

1. Node.js security checklist: https://blog.risingstack.com/node-js-security-checklist/
2. Application Threat Modeling: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Application_Threat_Modeling

Here are some more Secure Coding guidelines references

1. Secure Coding Cheat Sheet — OWASP
2. Hints for writing secure code | Java Code Geeks
3. OWASP Java Table of Contents — OWASP
4. Category:OWASP Enterprise Security API — OWASP
5. Overview (ESAPI 2.0.1 API)
6. Secure SDLC Cheat Sheet — OWASP
7. Blocking Brute Force Attacks — OWASP
8. HTTP Response Splitting — OWASP
9. Category:Java — OWASP
10. Session Timeout — OWASP
11. Java Security Resources — OWASP
12. Core Security Patterns — Ramesh Nagappan CISSP, Chris Steel CISSP and Ray Lai
13. Java 2 Platform Security | Java Security Architecture
14. SEI CERT Oracle Coding Standard for Java — CERT Oracle Coding Standard for Java — CERT Secure Coding Standards
15. Rule 14. Serialization (SER) — CERT Oracle Coding Standard for Java — CERT Secure Coding Standards
16. Guidelines for Java Developers (Ch. 7, Sec. 1) [Securing Java]
17. Penetration Testing Tools :: Collections :: Add-ons for Firefox
18. Error Handling, Auditing and Logging — OWASP
19. https://software-security.sans.org/2009/05/25/logging-cookies-in-apache/
20. Getting Started with the Force.com REST API — developer.force.com
21. Session Management Cheat Sheet — OWASP
22. Reviewing Code for Session Integrity issues — OWASP
23. DefaultHTTPUtilities.java — owasp-esapi-java — OWASP Enterprise Security API (Java Edition) — Google Project Hosting
24. 5 tips to fight session hijacking for web applications — Java EE Development Blog
25. Java Secure JEE Training | Secure Coding Training | Application Security
26. https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/application/attacks-oauth-secure-oauth-implementation-33644
27. Finding Additional Resources | Force.com REST API Developer’s Guide | Salesforce Developers
28. Security Code Review in the SDLC — OWASP
29. Category:Code Snippet — OWASP
30. OWASP Code Review Guide Table of Contents — OWASP
31. Searching for Code in J2EE/Java — OWASP
32. Java leading security practice — OWASP
33. Java gotchas — OWASP
34. Reviewing Web Services — OWASP
35. The Owasp Code Review Top 9 — OWASP
36. Rule 17. Java Native Interface (JNI) — CERT Oracle Coding Standard for Java — CERT Secure Coding Standards
37. Projects/OWASP Secure Coding Practices — Quick Reference Guide/Releases/SCP v2 — OWASP
38. OWASP Secure Coding Practices — Quick Reference Guide — OWASP
39. StuHunt.com | Offer Details
40. StuHunt.com | Offer Details
41. Measure Resource Loading Times | Web Tools — Google Developers
42. Java Coding Guidelines — CERT Oracle Coding Standard for Java — CERT Secure Coding Standards
43. ZAProxy Plugin — Jenkins — Jenkins Wiki
44. Secure Coding Guidelines for Java SE
45. Secure Coding Guidelines for the Java Programming Language, Version 3.0 (Sean Mullan’s Blog)
46. Twelve rules for developing more secure Java code | JavaWorld
47. Rule 00. Input Validation and Data Sanitization (IDS) — CERT Oracle Coding Standard for Java — CERT Secure Coding Standards
48. Intro to Pipeline Security — Jenkins (1/3) — breakFix
49. Jersey 2.22.1 User Guide
50. Best Practices for Designing a Pragmatic RESTful API | Vinay Sahni
51. 10 Steps to Secure Software — DZone Web Dev
52. Getting Started With RetroPie — DZone IoT
53. Understand™ Static Code Analysis Tool | SciTools.com
54. Customers | SciTools.com
55. https://d1dejaj6dcqv24.cloudfront.net/videos/2013/qualysguard/web-application-scanning/qualysguard-was-crawl-settings-selenium/qualysguard-was-crawl-settings-selenium — Broadband.m4v
56. Security HTTP Response Headers
57. Best Practices for Mobile Application QA in an Agile Environment — Recorded Webinar by Experitest &Syntel
58. Security: Secure Internet Data Transmission.
59. Threat Risk Modeling — OWASP
60. Secure Coding Guidelines for Java SE
61. NIST.gov — Computer Security Division — Computer Security Resource Center
62. PowerPoint Presentation
63. HTTPUtilities (ESAPI 2.0.1 API)
64. HTTP Authentication: www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2617.txt
65. WebDAV — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
66. Top 10 Coding Guidelines for Java | CERT NEWS
67. Generating Amazon S3 Pre-signed URLs with SSE (Part 1) | AWS Developer Blog
68. Security Functions | Security Question | HackerRank
69. amazon s3 — What is the purpose of the expiration time in signed S3 urls? — Information Security Stack Exchange
70. 9 Software Security Design Principles — DZone Java
71. Email, website and IP spoofing: How to prevent a spoofing attack
72. Security HTTP Response Headers

Summary:

Stay consistent and incorporate these practices into daily development. Remember, Security is everyone’s responsibility!

A Request: Have other great resources or tips? Drop them in the comments!

#SecureCoding #ApplicationSecurity #APISecurity #Cybersecurity

Connect with me for cybersecurity articles:

1. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jassics
2. Medium: https://jassics.medium.com
3. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/jassics
4. Github: https://www.github.com/jassics

Bookmark these ultimate learning resources for Secure Coding was originally published in Product Security on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

APIs are the backbone of modern applications, enabling seamless integration and data exchange across platforms. Whether you’re starting your API journey or looking to enhance your API security skills, I’ve curated a list of essential resources for API fundamentals and API security practices. Check them out below!

These are learning resources; however, for practical experience, you have to get your hands dirty. You can use any OWASP API security labs. I have learned using APISEC University, AppsecEngineer and Attack Defense Labs

Remember, you need to invest in yourself. Be it your health or skills.

API Fundamentals learning resources:

1. API Integration in details
2. API Testing Guide
3. Python API Tutorial
4. API Scaling
5. API workflow with Postman
6. API Testing using Postman
7. API Security Tutorial by Wallarm
8. API Explained for product managers
9. A linter for API documentation: Vale

API Security Learning resources

1. OWASP Top 10 API explained by Salt Security
2. Free resources to practice for OWASP Top 10 API by Contra Security
3. Paid lab from attack defense on API Security
4. API Hacking 101 by traceable.ai
5. API Security Challenges by Traceable AI
6. The evolution to cloud-native applications and APIs
7. Web Application security is not API security
8. Deep Dive on BoLA by Inon Shkedy
9. The 6 Most Common Security Issues in API Development and How to Fix Them
10. API Security Best Practices
11. OWASP API Security Top 10 Cheat Sheet
12. Securing Your APIs with OAuth 2.0
13. How to Secure an API with OAuth 2.0 from Digital Ocean
14. Securing Your GraphQL APIs
15. Secure your APIs with these ten best practices
16. API security best practices from checkmarx
17. Secure your APIs with these seven basic rules
18. API security best practices white paper from Akamai
19. Five HTTP security headers you must use for API security
20. API security best practices for developers
21. API Security Academy

API Security Tools

1. Dastardly from Burp suite (free): Use it in CI/CD pipeline
2. API Security Audit from 42 crunch for bitbucket pipeline:
3. Wallarm Advanced API Security Platform
4. Google Apigee Sense
5. Traceable: Intelligent API Security at Enterprise Scale
6. Levo: Continous API Security Assurance
7. Beagle Security
8. Salt Security
9. Cequence
10. Neosec: now part of Akamai

Books

1. API Security in Action
2. Hacking APIs: Breaking Web Application Programming Interfaces
3. Web Application Security
4. Advanced API Security

Videos

1. API Security: Everything you need to know to protect your APIs
2. The 2022Guide to API Security
3. Analysing the OWASP API Security Top 10 for Pen Testers

Courses

1. API Security Fundamentals form APISec University (free)
2. API Penetration Testing Course from APISec University (free)
3. API Security on Google Cloud’s Apigee API Platform
4. API Fundamentals from Qualys for (free)
5. Introduction to the OWASP API Security Top 10 — Cybrary (free)
6. Building Secure APIs with OAuth 2.0 from Pluralsight
7. Building Secure APIs with GraphQL from Pluralsight

Certifications

1. CSSLP
2. API Security Architect Certification
3. Certified API Security Professional

Interview Questions

Possible API Security interview questions are shared at different GitHub repos to keep them aligned with the career roadmap guide.

Bonus study material

👨‍🎓 Also, if you want to excel in API Security, You should check this API security study plan on Github: https://github.com/jassics/security-study-plan/blob/main/api-security-study-plan.md

In the ever-evolving landscape of APIs, staying updated is critical. Explore these resources and stay ahead in securing your APIs!

It was first published in AlienCoders

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Mastering with EssentialAPI Security learning resources was originally published in Product Security on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.