Akto for Pre-seed startups

Pre-seed environments balance rapid iteration with limited security headcount. Public facing APIs often expose authentication flows, data models, and administrative endpoints before controls are standardized. This scanner operates as a black-box assessment against the OWASP API Top 10 (2023), providing a risk score and prioritized findings without requiring code access or agents. You submit an API endpoint, and within under a minute you receive a grade and actionable guidance aligned to PCI-DSS 4.0 and SOC 2 Type II control objectives.

The scanner evaluates 12 security categories, including authentication bypass, IDOR, privilege escalation, sensitive data exposure, and injection surfaces. It supports OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0, resolving recursive $ref elements and cross-referencing spec definitions with runtime behavior to highlight undefined security schemes or deprecated operations. Findings map directly to PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II, and OWASP API Top 10 (2023), helping you prepare for audit evidence collection and aligning with security controls described in common frameworks.

With Starter tier and above, you can configure authenticated scans using Bearer tokens, API keys, Basic auth, or cookies. Domain verification through DNS TXT records or an HTTP well-known file ensures only domain owners can scan with credentials. The scanner strictly uses read-only methods, forwards a limited header allowlist, and blocks private IPs, localhost, and cloud metadata endpoints at multiple layers. No destructive payloads are ever sent, and customer data is deletable on demand, supporting a cautious security posture for early stage deployments.

Integrate scanning into your existing toolchain via the CLI, web dashboard, GitHub Action, and MCP Server. The CLI supports middlebrick scan <url> with JSON or text output, enabling CI/CD gates that fail the build when scores drop below a threshold. The dashboard provides trend tracking, branded compliance PDFs, and scheduled rescans. For AI assisted development, the MCP Server allows scanning directly from coding assistants, embedding security checks into developer workflows without requiring deep security expertise.

The scanner includes 18 adversarial probes across Quick, Standard, and Deep tiers targeting LLM specific risks. These probes cover system prompt extraction, instruction override attempts, data exfiltration patterns, token smuggling, and multi-turn manipulation, focusing on indirect prompt injection and tool abuse surfaces. Because business logic vulnerabilities require domain context, the results should complement rather than replace a human review of model behavior and guardrail effectiveness.

Understand what the scanner does not do: it does not fix, patch, or block findings, nor does it perform intrusive SQL or command injection testing. Blind SSRF and business logic validation remain out of scope, and the tool does not replace a human pentester for high-stakes audits. For continuous risk management, Pro tier offers scheduled rescans, diff detection, email alerts, HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks, and compliance report generation, allowing you to track security improvements as your API surface evolves.