OWASP API security – 8: Injection

Injection vulnerabilities arise when user input is not properly validated and is used directly in systems like databases, program logic, or shell commands, leading to potential security breaches such as SQL injection, command execution, or privilege escalation. These flaws are prevalent in SQL, LDAP, NoSQL queries, OS commands, XML parsers, and ORM, and can result in information disclosure, data loss, denial of service, or even a complete system takeover. To mitigate these risks, it's crucial to sanitize and validate input at all levels using tools like stored procedures, JSON schema validation, body transformation, and custom plugins. This challenge is compounded by the variety of implementations across languages, libraries, and business logic, making a one-size-fits-all solution difficult. As a general rule, user input should never be trusted and should be validated thoroughly before use to prevent such vulnerabilities, with resources like the OWASP guide offering essential practices for securing APIs.