Akto for Series A startups

As a Series A startup, your API surface is a primary target and a primary growth vector. You need visibility without slowing delivery. This scanner provides a black-box assessment that requires no agents, SDKs, or code access. It works with any language or framework and completes in under a minute using read-only methods, delivering a risk score and prioritized findings.

The scanner evaluates 12 categories aligned to the OWASP API Top 10 (2023), including authentication bypass, excessive data exposure, injection surfaces, and SSRF. Findings map directly to PCI-DSS 4.0 and SOC 2 Type II controls, and they align with security controls described in the OWASP API Top 10. The tool also surfaces findings relevant to audit evidence for common regulatory expectations, helping you prepare for assessments without claiming certification.

• Authentication issues, including JWT misconfigurations and security header misalignment.
• Broken Object Level Authorization and IDOR through sequential ID probing.
• Input validation gaps such as CORS wildcard usage and dangerous HTTP methods.
• Data exposure risks including PII patterns and API key leakage.
• Server-side request forgery indicators and internal network probing signals.
• LLM/AI security probes covering prompt injection, data exfiltration, and token smuggling across multiple scan tiers.

With authenticated scanning, available from the Starter tier onward, the tool validates ownership through a domain verification gate using DNS TXT records or an HTTP well-known file. Only designated headers such as Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* are forwarded. All testing is read-only, with destructive payloads never sent, and private IPs, localhost, and cloud metadata endpoints are blocked at multiple layers to prevent unintended probing.

The platform integrates into developer workflows without requiring deep security expertise. Use the CLI for on-demand scans, the GitHub Action as a CI/CD gate that fails builds when scores drop below a threshold, or the MCP Server to scan from AI coding assistants. For ongoing risk management, the Pro tier supports scheduled rescans, diff detection across runs, email alerts at a rate-limited cadence, and HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks that auto-disable after repeated failures.

OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 specifications are parsed with recursive $ref resolution, enabling cross-reference between the spec and runtime behavior to identify undefined security schemes or deprecated operations.

This scanner detects and reports, but it does not fix, patch, block, or remediate issues. It does not perform active SQL injection or command injection testing, which requires intrusive payloads outside its scope. Business logic vulnerabilities and blind SSRF that depend on out-of-band infrastructure are not in scope. The tool supports audit evidence generation and helps you prepare for reviews, but it does not replace a human pentester for high-stakes audits or serve as a compliance guarantee.