Akto for Seed-stage startups

Seed-stage teams often lack dedicated security staff while exposing multiple public APIs. The scanner delivers a letter-grade risk score in under a minute using read-only methods only. You submit an API endpoint collection URL and receive prioritized findings aligned to OWASP API Top 10 (2023), with clear remediation guidance that does not require a dedicated security engineer.

The scanner operates as a black-box solution with no agents or SDK integration, making it compatible with any language, framework, or cloud environment. It supports OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0, resolving recursive $ref definitions and cross-referencing spec definitions against runtime behavior. Detection categories include authentication bypass, JWT misconfigurations such as alg=none or expired tokens, BOLA and IDOR via sequential ID probing, BFLA and privilege escalation paths, over-exposed properties, input validation issues like CORS wildcard usage, rate limiting gaps, data exposure including PII and API key formats, encryption misconfigurations, SSRF indicators, inventory issues such as missing versioning, unsafe consumption surfaces, and LLM/AI adversarial probes across multiple scan tiers.

For endpoints that require authentication, the scanner supports Bearer tokens, API keys, Basic auth, and cookies in the Starter tier and above. Domain verification is enforced through DNS TXT records or an HTTP well-known file to ensure only domain owners can scan with credentials. The scanner strictly limits forwarded headers to Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* to reduce unintended data exposure. This approach allows seed-stage teams to validate protected APIs without deploying agents or modifying CI/CD pipelines.

Findings map directly to PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II, and OWASP API Top 10 (2023), helping you prepare for audits and validate controls without claiming certification. The Pro tier adds scheduled rescans every 6 hours, daily, weekly, or monthly, with diff detection across scans to highlight new findings, resolved items, and score drift. Email alerts are rate-limited to one per hour per API, and HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks can auto-disable after 5 consecutive failures, enabling integration with existing incident response workflows.

The Web Dashboard centralizes scans, reports, and score trend tracking, with branded compliance PDFs for stakeholder reporting. The CLI via the middlebrick npm package supports JSON and text output, and the GitHub Action can gate CI/CD when scores drop below a set threshold. The MCP Server enables scanning from AI coding assistants. Note that the tool does not fix, patch, block, or remediate issues, does not perform active SQL injection or command injection testing, does not detect business logic vulnerabilities, does not detect blind SSRF, and does not replace a human pentester for high-stakes audits. Pricing starts with a Free tier at zero cost for 3 scans per month, moving to Starter at 99 dollars per month for 15 APIs, Pro at 499 dollars per month for 100 APIs with continuous monitoring, and Enterprise at 2000 dollars per month for unlimited APIs and dedicated support.