Migrating from 42Crunch to middleBrick for API version deprecation audit

Many teams rely on a point-in-time audit to understand which API versions are in use and which should be deprecated. A typical workflow involves inventorying endpoints, checking access patterns, and mapping findings to PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II, and OWASP API Top 10 (2023). This workflow often depends on instrumentation inside the application or network proxies, which introduces maintenance overhead and potential access restrictions. When versions are deprecated, teams must coordinate changes across consumers while ensuring no regressions in availability or security.

Instrumented approaches require agents, SDKs, or code changes, which can be impractical for legacy systems or third-party APIs. They may also expose sensitive implementation details or increase operational complexity. Because these methods are tied to specific languages or frameworks, they do not generalize well across polyglot environments. In contrast, black-box scanning avoids these constraints by evaluating the API surface from the outside without access to source code or runtime components.

middleBrick is a self-service API security scanner designed to support deprecation-focused assessments without requiring code access. You submit a URL and receive a risk score from A to F with prioritized findings aligned to OWASP API Top 10 (2023), including authentication weaknesses, BOLA, BFLA, and unsafe consumption patterns. The scanner performs read-only methods (GET and HEAD) plus text-only POST for LLM probes, completing in under a minute per API. OpenAPI specifications in versions 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 are parsed with recursive $ref resolution, enabling cross-reference between spec definitions and runtime behavior to highlight undefined security schemes, sensitive fields, deprecated operations, and missing pagination.

For APIs that require authentication, middleBrick supports Bearer, API key, Basic auth, and Cookie credentials at the Starter tier and above. Domain verification is enforced through a DNS TXT record or an HTTP well-known file, ensuring that only the domain owner can submit credentials. The scanner forwards a strict header allowlist containing Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* headers. This controlled access model supports audit objectives while limiting exposure. Note that the scanner detects and reports issues; it does not fix, patch, block, or remediate findings, and it does not perform intrusive payloads such as active SQL injection or command injection.

Pro tier enables scheduled rescans every 6 hours, daily, weekly, or monthly to track score trends and diff detection across scans. You receive email alerts at a rate-limited cadence of 1 per hour per API, and HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks notify external systems while auto-disabling after 5 consecutive failures. The tool integrates into CI/CD via a GitHub Action that can fail builds when scores drop below a threshold, and the CLI provides JSON or text output for scripting. These capabilities help you prepare for audits, align with security controls described in compliance frameworks, and surface findings relevant to deprecation policies without claiming certification or guaranteed compliance.