Anatomy of an API scrape: reading 251 requests like a crime scene

Last week someone tried to copy my visa API's database. They didn't succeed — they got 0.6% of it before I cut the key — but the 251 requests they left behind are a near-perfect teaching case for what targeted API extraction actually looks like from the defender's side. Here's the forensic walkthrough. The target One endpoint: GET /api/v1/visa?from={passport}&to={destination} It returns the visa rule for a passport→destination pair — visa type, allowed stay, conditions. The full matrix is ~39,585 pairs. That matrix is the product. The evidence The attacker's requests weren't spread across the map. They were a sweep, one passport at a time: Passport Destinations pulled Coverage 🇦🇪 UAE (ARE) 195 ~100% of that passport's matrix 🇦🇺 Australia (AUS) 53 ~1/4, interrupted 🇨🇳 China (CHN) 2 test calls 249 unique pairs, near-zero duplicates. Whoever wrote this was methodical: validate that one full passport comes out