Research Methodology

Synthetic Codex Research Lab uses a manual-first, tool-assisted workflow designed to uncover real-world security issues in how web, API, and infrastructure systems behave under unusual, edge-case, and high-risk conditions.

Manual-first, not scanner-first

Automated scanners are treated as assistants, not decision-makers. The lab prioritizes understanding system behavior by:

Inspecting and manipulating HTTP traffic through proxies
Tracing authorization decisions across endpoints and roles
Exploring workflows out of order, under unusual state and input

Proxy-centric analysis Behavior over signatures Human-led judgment

Structured recon & note-taking

Reconnaissance is guided by repeatable templates, not ad-hoc notes. Each target or environment is mapped in terms of:

Endpoint inventory and key parameters
Object types and ID patterns
Assumed vs enforced authorization boundaries
Critical workflows and their expected sequences

Authorization & workflow focus

The methodology emphasizes where systems “trust” users or other components too much:

Broken object-level and function-level authorization
Business logic flaws allowing workflow bypasses
State handling failures and edge-case conditions

AI-assisted analysis

AI is used as a force multiplier for:

Identifying patterns in large request/response sets
Summarizing complex log or trace data
Drafting initial vulnerability reports and documentation

Final assessment, prioritization, and ethical decisions remain human-led.

Reporting & remediation focus

Findings are documented in a way that developers and security teams can act on:

Clear impact statements tied to real assets or actions
Minimal, reproducible steps plus annotated requests
Concrete suggestions for hardening logic or configuration

Why this methodology exists

Modern systems rarely fail because of a single exotic bug. They fail at the intersections: where authorization logic meets workflow design, where APIs meet infrastructure, where assumptions meet reality. The Synthetic Codex methodology is built to live in those intersections.