Alternatives to APIsec for Backend engineers
What middleBrick covers
- Black-box scanning with no agents or code access
- Detection aligned to OWASP API Top 10 and mapped frameworks
- Authenticated scanning with strict header allowlisting
- OpenAPI 3.x/2.0 parsing with spec-to-runtime diffing
- LLM adversarial probes across multiple scan tiers
- Continuous monitoring with HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks
Black-box scanning without agents or code access
middleBrick is a self-service API security scanner that operates as a black-box tool. You submit a target URL and receive a risk score with prioritized findings, without installing agents, accessing source code, or integrating SDKs. The scanner supports any language, framework, or cloud stack because it interacts only over the network using read-only methods (GET and HEAD) and text-only POST for LLM probes. Scan completion typically occurs in under a minute, enabling rapid feedback during development and pre-deployment checks.
Detection aligned to OWASP API Top 10 and mapped compliance frameworks
The scanner evaluates 12 security categories aligned to OWASP API Top 10 (2023), including authentication bypass, JWT misconfigurations, BOLA and IDOR, BFLA and privilege escalation, property authorization over-exposure, input validation, rate limiting, data exposure, encryption, SSRF, inventory management, and LLM/AI security. Findings map directly to PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II, and OWASP API Top 10, helping you prepare for audits and validate controls. For other frameworks, the tool supports audit evidence collection and aligns with security controls described in relevant standards.
Authenticated scanning and strict header forwarding
With Starter tier and above, authenticated scanning is available using Bearer tokens, API keys, Basic auth, and cookies. Domain verification is enforced through DNS TXT records or an HTTP well-known file, ensuring only the domain owner can submit credentials. Header forwarding is limited to Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* to reduce noise and prevent unintended side effects.
OpenAPI spec analysis and continuous monitoring
The tool parses OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 documents, resolving recursive $ref references and cross-referencing definitions against runtime behavior to detect undefined security schemes, sensitive fields, deprecated operations, and missing pagination. Continuous monitoring (Pro tier) runs scheduled rescans every 6 hours, daily, weekly, or monthly, diffs findings across scans, and delivers alerts via email at a rate-limited cadence of one per hour per API. Webhooks are HMAC-SHA256 signed and auto-disabled after five consecutive failures.
LLM adversarial testing and safety boundaries
LLM/AI security testing includes 18 adversarial probes across Quick, Standard, and Deep scan tiers, covering 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, PII extraction, and related techniques. The scanner maintains strict safety boundaries: it uses read-only methods only, blocks private IPs, localhost, and cloud metadata endpoints at multiple layers, and never sends destructive payloads.