42Crunch for Pre-seed startups

For pre-seed teams, engineering bandwidth is the scarcest resource. This scanner operates as a black-box solution, requiring no agents, SDKs, or code access. You submit an API endpoint URL and receive a risk score with prioritized findings in under a minute, using only read-only methods.

The scanner evaluates 12 categories aligned to the OWASP API Top 10 (2023), focusing on issues commonly introduced during rapid development. It checks authentication bypasses, JWT misconfigurations such as alg=none, sensitive data in claims, and security header compliance. It probes for BOLA and IDOR via sequential ID enumeration and adjacent-ID testing, and identifies BFLA through admin endpoint probing and role leakage. Input validation is assessed by checking for CORS wildcard usage, dangerous HTTP methods, and debug endpoints. Rate limiting detection includes evaluating rate-limit headers and oversized responses, while data exposure checks for PII patterns, API key formats, and error or stack-trace leakage. Encryption checks verify HTTPS redirects, HSTS, and cookie flags. The scanner also targets SSRF via URL-accepting parameters and body fields, and reviews inventory practices such as missing versioning and legacy path patterns. For AI-related risks, it runs 18 adversarial probes across three scan tiers to test system prompt extraction, instruction override, jailbreak techniques, and token smuggling.

The tool parses OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 documents, resolving recursive $ref references to build a complete picture of the declared surface. It cross-references spec definitions against runtime behavior to highlight undefined security schemes, sensitive fields, deprecated operations, and missing pagination. This helps identify discrepancies between documented contracts and actual behavior before they reach production.

Authenticated scanning is available starting with the Starter tier, supporting Bearer tokens, API keys, Basic auth, and cookies. A domain verification gate ensures that only the domain owner can scan with credentials, using DNS TXT records or an HTTP well-known file. The scanner forwards a strict header allowlist limited to Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* headers, reducing the risk of credential exposure during scans.

With Pro tier, you can schedule rescans at intervals of six hours, daily, weekly, or monthly. The system detects diffs between scans to surface new findings, resolved items, and score drift, and it sends email alerts at a rate-limited frequency of one per hour per API. HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks are supported, with auto-disable after five consecutive failures. Integration options include a CLI via an npm package, a GitHub Action that can fail CI/CD builds when scores drop below a threshold, and an MCP server for use with AI coding assistants.