Schema Extraction

Schema extraction is a specialized reconnaissance technique where attackers extract data models, field definitions, and relational structures from an application's API to understand the underlying data architecture. During the reconnaissance phase, attackers analyze API responses, error messages, and documentation to map out object schemas, identify data types, required fields, and validation constraints. By systematically harvesting this structural information, attackers gain critical insights into the application's data model, which subsequently enables more sophisticated attacks such as data exfiltration, injection vulnerabilities, or business logic abuse. Schema extraction differs from standard API specification harvesting as it focuses specifically on the data structures rather than API endpoints and operations, providing attackers with the blueprint of how sensitive data is organized and interconnected within the target system.