How to Secure Your GraphQL API in CI/CD: Best Practices

Karim Rustom -

Securing your GraphQL API should never be an afterthought, especially within a CI/CD pipeline. As software development becomes faster and more automated, security must integrate seamlessly into the development lifecycle. This ensures vulnerabilities are detected early, preventing costly issues that could make it to production.

In this article, we'll explore how to secure your GraphQL API within your CI/CD pipeline, and how automated tools like Escape DAST that support GraphQL natively can help you streamline your security efforts while promoting a DevSecOps approach.

Why Secure GraphQL in CI/CD?

GraphQL, unlike traditional REST APIs, provides more flexibility in data retrieval, but this flexibility also introduces security risks, such as GraphQL bombs or unauthorized access. As development teams embrace rapid deployment, leaving security out of the CI/CD pipeline leaves APIs vulnerable to attacks, such as unauthorized queries or data leaks.

Our study on 3,000 different GraphQL endpoints revealed that one of the most prevalent security flaws was related to access control configurations—essentially, the question of "who can do what?" This is a critical area, as improper access control can lead to unauthorized data access and security breaches. Interestingly, we discovered that most access control vulnerabilities are introduced later in the development process, often when the API is already well into its lifecycle. Without robust security measures in place early on, these vulnerabilities can easily slip through unnoticed, especially when rushing to deploy.

By integrating security testing into your CI/CD pipeline, you can ensure vulnerabilities are detected during development, preventing security flaws from reaching production environments.

Key GraphQL Security Risks in CI/CD

Beyond access control misconfigurations, several other prevalent GraphQL security risks should be addressed in CI/CD:

  1. Unlimited Query Complexity: GraphQL's flexible query structure can lead to performance issues if not properly managed. Without depth limits, attackers can craft deeply nested or cyclic queries, potentially causing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Setting sensible depth limits helps prevent such exploits. You can learn how to do it in our GraphQL academy.​
  2. Injection Attacks: GraphQL APIs that incorporate user-supplied input without proper sanitization are susceptible to various injection attacks, including SQL, NoSQL, and command injections. These can lead to unauthorized data access or manipulation. It's crucial to sanitize user inputs to prevent these vulnerabilities.
  3. Missing Rate Limiting: Without rate limiting, APIs are vulnerable to abuse through excessive requests, which can degrade performance or lead to service outages. Implementing rate limiting helps prevent such abuses and ensures fair usage among clients. ​
  4. Insecure Direct Object References (IDOR): IDOR vulnerabilities in GraphQL occur when users can access resources they are not authorized to by manipulating object references. In GraphQL, this can happen if access controls are not properly enforced at the resolver level. Ensuring that users can only access their own data is essential to prevent IDOR attacks.
  5. Improperly Configured HTTP Headers: Misconfigured HTTP headers can expose APIs to various attacks, including Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). Setting appropriate headers, such as Access-Control-Allow-Origin, X-Content-Type-Options, and Content-Security-Policy, enhances security by restricting how browsers interact with your API responses. ​
  6. Debug Mode Exposure: Leaving debug mode enabled in production environments can expose sensitive information, including stack traces and API schemas, to attackers. It's important to disable debug mode and ensure that error messages do not reveal internal implementation details. ​

By proactively addressing these vulnerabilities within your CI/CD pipeline, you can enhance the security posture of your GraphQL APIs and reduce the risk of security incidents in production environments.

How Escape Helps Integrate GraphQL Security into CI/CD

Escape's DAST platform integrates directly into your CI/CD pipeline, ensuring your GraphQL API is free from critical vulnerabilities at every stage of development. With Escape, you can integrate real-time security checks into your pipeline, allowing you to detect vulnerabilities like access control flaws, data leaks, and misconfiguration.

Features of Escape CI/CD Integration:

Escape offers two types of scan triggers in your CI/CD pipelines:

  1. Non-blocking scan: Ideal for monitoring purposes
  2. Blocking scan: Waits for scan completion and validates security requirements

All of this comes with seamless notifications — you can get notified through defined communication channels (Slack, Microsoft Teams, email..) when a security issue is detected (see workflows)

“Escape is an innovative tool, and its results and algorithms are truly impressive. It was able to find GraphQL vulnerabilities that their competitors haven't seen. It also provides me with extensive testing capabilities." - Pierre Charbel, Product Security Engineer, Lightspeed

Setting Up Escape in Your CI/CD Pipeline

Escape supports multiple CI/CD platforms:

Here is an example of configuration in GitLab CI - Add the following configuration to your .gitlab-ci.yml:

Escape:
  stage: post-deploy
  needs:
    - deploy # name of your deployment job
  variables: # you can find those secrets directly in your Escape Application Settings
    - ESCAPE_APPLICATION_ID: $ESCAPE_APPLICATION_ID
    - ESCAPE_API_KEY: $ESCAPE_API_KEY
  image: node:alpine
  before_script:
    - npm install -g @escape.tech/action
    - npm show @escape.tech/action version
  script:
    - escape-action
  allow_failure: true
  only:
    refs:
      - staging

Conclusion: Secure Your GraphQL API at Every Step

Integrating security into your CI/CD pipeline is the most effective way to secure your GraphQL APIs from the get-go. Tools like Escape help ensure that you detect vulnerabilities early, prevent costly post-production security incidents, and enable your team to adopt a DevSecOps approach.

Get a demo with our product expert to see how Escape DAST can help you secure GraphQL natively

By automating security within your CI/CD flow, you not only enhance your API's security but also increase your development speed, allowing for a secure, scalable, and efficient API development process.

💡Want to learn more about GraphQL security testing?

Check out our blog posts below: