GraphQL Test Cases: A Comprehensive Checklist for Bug Bounty Hunters and Penetration Testers
Checklist available here: https://anmolksachan.github.io/graphql/
GraphQL has emerged as a popular choice for building APIs that can be queried efficiently and intuitively, making it an ideal candidate for building modern web applications. As GraphQL has become increasingly popular, it has also become a target for attackers who are looking for vulnerabilities that they can exploit. That’s why it’s important to have a comprehensive set of test cases to validate the security of your GraphQL API.
In this article, we will be discussing a comprehensive checklist of GraphQL test cases that can be used by bug bounty hunters and penetration testers to identify vulnerabilities in GraphQL APIs. We will also discuss why GraphQL is becoming popular, the use cases of GraphQL, and why testing GraphQL APIs is important.
Why GraphQL is Becoming Popular?
GraphQL is becoming increasingly popular because of its unique features and advantages over other traditional APIs. Unlike RESTful APIs, GraphQL allows clients to specify the exact data that they need and fetch it with a single query, reducing the number of requests and reducing the amount of data transferred over the network.
With GraphQL, the client is in control of the data that is fetched, which allows for faster and more efficient data retrieval. Additionally, GraphQL also allows for a schema-based approach to API development, making it easier to create and maintain APIs.
Use Cases for GraphQL
GraphQL has been widely adopted across a variety of domains, including social media, e-commerce, and travel. Some of the popular use cases of GraphQL include:
- Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter use GraphQL to serve data to their users. GraphQL allows for efficient data retrieval, which is crucial for social media platforms with a large user base.
- E-commerce platforms like Shopify and Amazon also use GraphQL to fetch product data efficiently. With GraphQL, clients can fetch only the required data, which reduces the load on the server and improves the performance of the application.
- Travel platforms like Airbnb and TripAdvisor use GraphQL to fetch travel data efficiently. GraphQL allows for faster data retrieval, which is crucial for travel platforms that require real-time data.
Why Testing GraphQL APIs is Important?
Just like any other API, GraphQL APIs are also susceptible to vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers. That’s why it’s important to have a comprehensive set of test cases that can be used to identify vulnerabilities in GraphQL APIs.
By testing GraphQL APIs, you can identify security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), path traversal, and command injection. Identifying these vulnerabilities is crucial in preventing attacks that can result in data theft, loss of confidentiality, and other security breaches.
GraphQL Test Cases Checklist
The following is a comprehensive checklist of test cases that can be used to validate the security of your GraphQL API. These test cases cover various scenarios and can be used to identify vulnerabilities in your GraphQL API:
- Introspection query: Verify that the introspection query is disabled.
- SQL Injection: Attempt to perform SQL injection.
- Cross-site scripting (XSS): Attempt to perform a cross-site scripting attack.
- Path Traversal: Attempt to perform path traversal.
- Command Injection: Attempt to perform command injection.
This is just a basic list of GraphQL test cases that can be used as a starting point (more are hosted here). Depending on the complexity of your API, additional test cases may be required to ensure that your API is secure.
Checklist
https://anmolksachan.github.io/graphql/
Conclusion
GraphQL has emerged as a popular choice for building APIs, but with popularity comes the risk of security vulnerabilities. By testing your GraphQL API, you can identify and fix vulnerabilities before they can be exploited by attackers. The checklist of GraphQL test cases presented in this article is a great starting point for bug bounty hunters and penetration testers to identify vulnerabilities in GraphQL APIs.
