Use Cases Business-Logic Attacks

Your API Working Against You — Legitimately

Business-logic attacks don't inject code or forge tokens. They use your API exactly as designed — just in the wrong order, at the wrong scale, or with the wrong data. No WAF signature can stop what looks like a valid request.

Attack Vectors

Where Business Logic Gets Exploited

BOLA (IDOR)

Broken Object Level Authorization: change the ID in GET /orders/12345 to access another user's orders. The request is syntactically valid and passes authentication. Only sequence context reveals that user A shouldn't be reading user B's objects.

Price Manipulation

Manipulating price or discount parameters in checkout flows. amount=-50.00 or coupon_id=STAFF20 submitted with a standard auth token passes every schema validation — the logic error is in the intent, not the format.

Workflow Bypass

Calling POST /checkout/confirm without first going through POST /checkout/validate and POST /checkout/payment. The confirmation step may proceed without fraud checks or inventory locks. Sequence analysis catches the missing steps.

Detection Approach

Sequence Analysis Catches Intent

Hirefathom's behavioral graph models the expected flow of API calls. When an actor skips steps, accesses out-of-context objects, or injects unexpected parameter values, the deviation is flagged against their established sequence baseline.

Call Sequence Modeling

Normal user journeys build a directed graph of API call sequences. Add-to-cart always precedes checkout; profile view precedes account update. Attackers who jump directly to high-value endpoints skip the expected lead-up steps — and the sequence model flags it.

Object Scope Tracking

The behavioral engine tracks which object IDs an authenticated session is "supposed" to access based on prior API calls. Accessing an object ID never returned to that session is a BOLA signal even if the auth token is valid and the request schema is correct.

Parameter Distribution Baseline

Numeric parameters (price, quantity, discount) build statistical distributions from normal traffic. A value 8 standard deviations from the mean — like a negative price or a quantity of 99,999 — triggers an alert regardless of whether schema validation passes.

Real-Time Inline Response

Block suspicious business-logic transactions before they commit to your backend — preventing the BOLA data exposure or the price manipulation order from ever being processed. Per-endpoint mode lets you alert on discovery and block on high-confidence patterns.

See What Your WAF Is Missing