Alternatives to 42Crunch for CISOs
What middleBrick covers
- Black-box scanning with under-one-minute scan times
- Risk score A–F with prioritized findings
- OWASP API Top 10, PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II mappings
- OpenAPI 3.x and Swagger 2.0 parsing with $ref resolution
- Authenticated testing with header allowlists
- Pro continuous monitoring and webhook integrations
Scope and testing approach
middleBrick is a black-box API security scanner that submits read-only requests and analyzes runtime behavior. It does not require agents, SDKs, or code access and supports any language, framework, or cloud. Scans complete in under a minute using GET and HEAD methods, with text-only POST for LLM probes. The tool surfaces a risk score from A to F and prioritizes findings for remediation.
Detection coverage aligned to industry standards
Findings map directly to OWASP API Top 10 (2023), PCI-DSS 4.0, and SOC 2 Type II controls. Detection includes authentication bypasses and JWT misconfigurations, BOLA and IDOR via sequential ID probing, BFLA and privilege escalation attempts, property over-exposure, input validation issues such as CORS wildcard usage, rate-limiting indicators, and data exposure patterns like emails, card Luhn checks, API key formats, and error leakage. Encryption checks cover HTTPS redirects, HSTS, and cookie flags. SSRF probes target URL-accepting parameters, and inventory checks include missing versioning and legacy paths. LLM security testing performs 18 adversarial probes across Quick, Standard, and Deep tiers, including jailbreaks, data exfiltration attempts, and token smuggling.
OpenAPI analysis and authenticated scanning
The scanner parses OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 files with recursive $ref resolution, cross-referencing spec definitions against runtime findings to identify undefined security schemes, deprecated operations, and missing pagination. Authenticated scanning supports Bearer, API key, Basic auth, and cookies, gated by domain verification through DNS TXT records or HTTP well-known files. Only a limited set of headers is forwarded, and scanning is restricted to domains you control.
Product features and operational safety
The Web Dashboard centralizes scans, score trends, and branded compliance PDF downloads. The CLI via the middlebrick npm package supports JSON and text output, and a GitHub Action can fail builds based on score thresholds. An MCP Server enables scans from AI coding assistants. Continuous monitoring on Pro tiers provides scheduled rescans, diff detection, email alerts, HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks, and auto-disable after repeated failures. Scan data is deletable on demand and purged within 30 days of cancellation. The scanner uses read-only methods only, blocks private and metadata endpoints, and does not store or sell customer data.
Limitations and complementary practices
middleBrick does not fix, patch, or block findings, nor does it perform active SQL injection or command injection testing. Business logic vulnerabilities require domain expertise and are outside automated scope. Blind SSRF and certain advanced logic issues are not detectable without out-of-band infrastructure. The tool does not replace human pentesters for high-stakes audits and is designed to support, not substitute, expert security review.