How API discovery works
Invicti correlates discovery data from source code, network traffic, API gateways, and web applications to continuously maintain a complete API inventory for scanning.
API discovery
Discover hidden APIs across your attack surface
Automatically uncover APIs through application scanning, gateways, network traffic, and source code. Reduce manual discovery work and bring more endpoints into security testing.
Struggling with API discovery?
Incomplete inventories
Security teams lack an accurate record of the APIs they own and need to assess.
Developer friction
SecOps needs manually supplied specifications and authentication details.
Unmanageable sprawl
New APIs and endpoints appear faster than security teams can inventory them.
Hidden APIs
Web crawling and monitoring alone miss APIs that aren't linked to a UI or actively used.
Discover more APIs with less manual work
Más de 5000 organizaciones líderes confían en Invicti
application scanning
Discover APIs without additional sensors
Use Invicti's DAST engine to automatically identify API endpoints during web application scans. Discover APIs exposed through application interfaces without installing additional sensors or manually supplying API specifications.
- Crawls web applications
- Observes API calls made by the UI
- Extracts API endpoints automatically
API gateway integration
Find deployed APIs across your infrastructure
Connect Invicti to supported API gateways to retrieve endpoint information and specifications. Identify deployed APIs without relying solely on developer-maintained inventories.
Integrate with:
- Kong
- Apigee
- AWS API Gateway
- Azure API Management
network traffic analysis
Uncover APIs hidden in live traffic
Analyze API activity across supported network infrastructure to discover active endpoints that application crawling might miss. Extend visibility into undocumented APIs running in production.
Detect activity across:
- F5
- NGINX
- Cloudflare
- Kubernetes environments
source code discovery
Find APIs in source code
Discover API endpoints directly from source code, including those not yet deployed. Generate specifications when documentation is missing to expand API visibility and testing coverage.
- Identify API endpoints in code
- Connect to GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket
- Locate API specification files
- Generate schemas when documentation is missing
“We can fire up Invicti, run the tests as often as we like, and mitigate to our hearts’ content. The budget we were spending every year on penetration testing decreased by approximately 60% almost immediately …
“As opposed to other web application scanners we used, Invicti is very easy to use and does not require a lot of configuring. An out of the…
“Start integrating Invicti into your process and you’ll be surprised at how much time it saves you and how much ‘auto magic’ it brings to your entire development pipeline …
Frequently asked API discovery questions
How does Invicti discover APIs automatically?
Invicti uses multi-layer API discovery to identify endpoints across your environment. The platform gathers API information from web application scans, API gateways, network traffic analysis, and source code repositories. By correlating these discovery sources, Invicti builds a complete API inventory without requiring developers to manually provide schemas or endpoint lists.
Can Invicti discover APIs before they reach production?
Yes. Invicti can connect directly to source code repositories such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket to identify APIs defined in code. This allows APIs to be discovered earlier in the development lifecycle so security testing can begin before deployment.
How does Invicti handle authentication for API scanning?
Invicti can detect and work with common authentication mechanisms such as tokens, cookies, and OAuth. During discovery and scanning, the platform identifies authentication patterns and uses them to perform authenticated testing of API endpoints.
Does API discovery stay up to date as applications change?
Yes. Invicti integrates with CI/CD pipelines and development repositories to detect new or modified APIs as applications evolve. Newly discovered APIs are automatically added to the inventory and prepared for security testing.
What types of APIs can Invicti discover?
Invicti can discover many types of APIs, including:
- REST APIs
- GraphQL APIs
- mobile backend APIs
- service-to-service APIs
- headless APIs
- undocumented or shadow APIs
This allows security teams to identify APIs that may not appear in documentation or application inventories.
Does Invicti require API schemas to run API scans?
No. Many API security tools require developers to manually provide OpenAPI or Swagger specifications before testing can begin. Invicti automatically extracts or reconstructs API schemas from discovery sources such as code, gateways, and network traffic. This removes the need for manual setup.
How is this different from API monitoring tools?
API monitoring tools primarily analyze runtime traffic to detect attacks or suspicious activity. Invicti focuses on proactive API security testing. The platform discovers APIs across multiple sources and then actively tests them for vulnerabilities such as those listed in the OWASP API Top 10.
What happens after APIs are discovered?
Once APIs are identified, Invicti automatically prepares them for testing by extracting or generating API schemas and mapping endpoint relationships. The APIs are then passed to the DAST engine, which scans them for vulnerabilities such as broken access control, injection flaws, and authentication weaknesses.
Discover shadow APIs, validate real risks, and secure every endpoint.
