Alternatives to Apigee for Backend engineers

What middleBrick covers

Black-box scanning with read-only methods under one minute
Risk score A–F with prioritized findings
Detection aligned to OWASP API Top 10 (2023), PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II
OpenAPI 3.0/3.1 and Swagger 2.0 parsing with $ref resolution
Authenticated scanning with strict header allowlist and domain verification
Continuous monitoring with diff detection and scheduled rescans

Purpose and scope of API security scanning

API security requires visibility into runtime behavior rather than relying solely on design documents. This tool performs a black-box scan against any reachable endpoint, using only read-only methods such as GET and HEAD, plus text-only POST for LLM probes. Scan completion typically occurs in under a minute, providing a risk score and prioritized findings without requiring agents, SDKs, or access to source code.

Detection coverage aligned to industry standards

The scanner evaluates 12 security categories aligned to the OWASP API Top 10 (2023), covering authentication bypass, JWT misconfigurations, BOLA and IDOR, BFLA and privilege escalation, property authorization over-exposure, input validation issues, rate limiting characteristics, data exposure including PII and API key formats, encryption hygiene, SSRF indicators, inventory and versioning issues, and unsafe consumption surfaces. Findings map directly to PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II, and OWASP API Top 10 controls, helping you prepare for audit evidence and validate implemented controls.

Authentication — multi-method bypass, JWT alg=none, expired tokens, missing claims, sensitive data in claims, security headers, WWW-Authenticate compliance.
BOLA / IDOR — sequential ID enumeration, active adjacent-ID probing.
BFLA / Privilege Escalation — admin endpoint probing, role and permission field leakage.
Property Authorization — over-exposure, internal field leakage, mass-assignment surface.
Input Validation — CORS wildcard with and without credentials, dangerous HTTP methods, debug endpoints.
Rate Limiting & Resource Consumption — rate-limit header detection, oversized responses, unpaginated arrays.
Data Exposure — email and context-aware SSN patterns, Luhn-validated card numbers, API key formats for AWS, Stripe, GitHub, Slack, error and stack-trace leakage.
Encryption — HTTPS redirect, HSTS, cookie flags, mixed content.
SSRF — URL-accepting parameters and body fields, internal IP detection, active IP-bypass probes.
Inventory Management — missing versioning, legacy path patterns, server fingerprinting.
Unsafe Consumption — excessive third-party URLs, webhook and callback surface.
LLM / AI Security — 18 adversarial probes across Quick, Standard, and Deep tiers, including system prompt extraction, instruction override, DAN and roleplay jailbreaks, data exfiltration, cost exploitation, encoding bypasses, translation-embedded injection, few-shot poisoning, markdown injection, multi-turn manipulation, indirect prompt injection, token smuggling, tool abuse, nested instruction injection, and PII extraction.

OpenAPI specification analysis

The scanner parses OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 documents, resolving recursive $ref references and cross-referencing spec definitions against runtime observations. This highlights undefined security schemes, sensitive fields in the spec, deprecated operations, and missing pagination, enabling you to compare intended design with actual behavior.

openapi: 3.0.1
info:
  title: Example API
  version: 1.0.0
paths:
  /users/{id}:
    get:
      summary: Get user by ID
      securitySchemes:
        bearerAuth:
          type: http
          scheme: bearer
      responses:
        '200':
          description: OK

Authenticated scanning and safety controls

Authenticated scanning is available from the Starter tier and above, supporting Bearer tokens, API keys, Basic authentication, and cookies. Domain verification requires a DNS TXT record or an HTTP well-known file to ensure only the domain owner can submit credentials. The scanner forwards a strict header allowlist limited to Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* headers. Read-only methods are enforced, destructive payloads are never sent, and private IPs, localhost, and cloud metadata endpoints are blocked at multiple layers. Customer scan data is deletable on demand and purged within 30 days of cancellation, and it is never sold or used for model training.

Product integrations and continuous monitoring

The Web Dashboard centralizes scans, report viewing, score trend tracking, and branded compliance PDF downloads. The CLI npm package supports commands such as middlebrick scan <url> with JSON or text output. A GitHub Action can gate CI/CD, failing the build when the score drops below a defined threshold. The MCP Server enables scanning from AI coding assistants like Claude and Cursor. For ongoing risk management, the Pro tier offers scheduled rescans every 6 hours, daily, weekly, or monthly, diff detection across scans to highlight new and resolved findings, email alerts rate-limited to one per hour per API, and HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks that auto-disable after five consecutive failures.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this scanner perform active SQL injection or command injection testing?

No. The scanner focuses on read-only observation and does not send intrusive payloads such as active SQL injection or command injection.

Can it detect business logic vulnerabilities?

It surfaces anomalies that may relate to business logic, but detecting business logic vulnerabilities requires human expertise aligned to your domain.

Is the tool suitable for compliance certification such as SOC 2 or PCI-DSS?

It helps you prepare audit evidence and maps findings to SOC 2 Type II and PCI-DSS 4.0, but it does not perform certification.

What happens to scan data after account cancellation?

Customer scan data is deletable on demand and permanently purged within 30 days of cancellation.