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A nested API route must authorize the requested action on the specific child object and verify its relationship to the parent named in the path when that relationship matters to the policy. Checking access to the parent alone does not authorize access to every child beneath it. “Two checks” describes two security facts to cover—not a requirement to make exactly two separate policy calls.
Does authorization on the parent resource protect its children?
No. A route such as /users/{user_id}/orders/{order_id} names both a parent and a specific order. Permission to access the user record does not automatically grant permission to read or modify every order identified in the path. OWASP warns that APIs can enforce authorization on the outer resource while overlooking the nested object, and recommends object-level authorization for every API request (OWASP API Security: Broken Object Level Authorization; OWASP Web Security Testing Guide: API Broken Object Level Authorization).
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For a protected request, the authorization decision needs enough context to cover the caller, requested action, specific child object, and—where relevant—the tenant and parent-child relationship. One policy evaluation can consider all of these facts. The security requirement is complete coverage, not a fixed number of internal checks.
How do I secure nested API routes?
Authorize the specific child and action
Check whether this caller may perform this operation on this particular object. Apply the check to reads and writes, and repeat it for every protected request. A user’s ability to view a profile, for example, should not stand in for a separate decision about reading or changing one of that user’s orders.
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Validate the parent-child relationship
If the route includes both a parent ID and child ID, ensure the selected child belongs under that parent whenever the policy or data model requires it. Otherwise, a caller may substitute an ID for an object they cannot access while keeping an authorized parent in the route.
Enforce this close to the protected resource, where the service can evaluate the effective action, object, and tenant. OWASP advises denying by default and validating permissions on every request (OWASP Authorization Cheat Sheet). A gateway can apply useful broad rules, but it may not have the context needed to authorize a particular child object; in that case, the service still needs the object-level decision.
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Do not treat identity or hard-to-guess IDs as permission
Authentication establishes who is making the request; it does not grant access to every resource that identity can name. Likewise, an unpredictable identifier may make guessing harder, but it does not replace an authorization decision for the object.
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These controls address different questions and may all apply to the same request:
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- Authentication: Who is the caller?
- Token restrictions: Which resource server, resources, or actions may the token address?
- Object-level authorization: May this caller perform this action on this specific object, in this tenant and parent context?
OAuth token validation can narrow what a token is allowed to reach. RFC 9700, the IETF’s OAuth 2.0 Security Best Current Practice published in January 2025, recommends least-privilege access tokens and checking their restrictions on every request. A valid token still does not establish the caller’s relationship to every child object (RFC 9700).
Role-based access control (RBAC) grants permissions through roles. Attribute-based (ABAC) and relationship-based (ReBAC) approaches can express more detailed rules. Choose a model that can represent the application’s actual caller, action, object, tenant, and parent-child requirements; the model does not remove the need to enforce the decision on each request.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How do I test for broken object-level authorization?
- Create equivalent objects under two separate accounts or tenants.
- Authenticate as one account and make a request for its own object.
- Replace the object ID with the other account’s ID while keeping the caller unchanged. For a nested endpoint, test the relevant combinations of parent and child IDs.
- Repeat for each supported method, including
GET,PUT,PATCH, andDELETE. - Repeat the checks for every exposed object type and relevant route. Confirm that unauthorized requests are denied rather than exposing or changing another account’s data.
Testing only a read route is insufficient if a write method uses a different or missing authorization path. OWASP’s guidance covers object-level authorization across API requests, including nested routes and operations (OWASP API Security: Broken Object Level Authorization; OWASP Web Security Testing Guide: API Broken Object Level Authorization).
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