Astra as a API fuzzer

Astra operates as an API fuzzer within a broader black-box scanning model. It submits malformed and unexpected inputs to reachable endpoints while remaining read-only, using GET and HEAD methods plus text-only POST for LLM probes. Because no agents or SDKs are required, the approach works across languages, frameworks, and cloud providers, completing in under a minute.

The scanner evaluates 12 categories aligned to OWASP API Top 10 (2023), focusing on behavioral indicators rather than attempting to patch or block findings. It checks authentication bypass paths, including JWT misconfigurations such as alg=none and expired tokens, and probes for BOLA and IDOR via sequential ID enumeration and active adjacent-ID probing. Additional coverage includes BFLA and privilege escalation attempts, over-exposed properties and mass-assignment surfaces, CORS wildcards and dangerous HTTP methods, rate-limit headers and oversized responses, PII patterns and API key leakage, HTTPS enforcement and cookie flags, SSRF indicators involving internal IP probes, missing versioning and server fingerprinting, unsafe third-party webhook surfaces, and LLM security probes across Quick, Standard, and Deep tiers.

When an OpenAPI specification is supplied, the tool parses OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 with recursive $ref resolution, then cross-references spec definitions against runtime behavior to highlight undefined security schemes, sensitive fields, deprecated operations, and missing pagination. Authenticated scanning supports Bearer, API key, Basic auth, and Cookie methods, gated by domain verification through DNS TXT records or an HTTP well-known file to ensure only the domain owner can submit credentials. Header forwarding is limited to Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* headers.

For ongoing risk tracking, the Pro tier offers scheduled rescans every 6 hours, daily, weekly, or monthly, with diff detection that surfaces new findings, resolved findings, and score drift. Alerts are rate-limited to one email per hour per API, and findings can be delivered via HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks that auto-disable after five consecutive failures. The tool integrates through a web dashboard for reports and trend tracking, a CLI with JSON or text output, a GitHub Action that can fail builds based on score thresholds, an MCP server for AI coding assistants, and a programmable API for custom workflows.

The scanner does not perform active SQL injection or command injection tests, as those require intrusive payloads outside its scope, and it does not detect business logic vulnerabilities that demand domain-specific human analysis. It also does not offer blind SSRF testing due to the absence of out-of-band infrastructure. Results align with security controls described in PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II, and OWASP API Top 10 (2023), helping you prepare for audit evidence and supporting reviews without asserting certification or compliance guarantees.