This Free Tool Spots Hidden Risks in AI and APIs

Operant AI has expanded its portfolio with the launch of Woodpoacker, an open‑source engine that automates “red teaming” across AI models, Kubernetes clusters, and APIs. According to the company, this combination is missing from most security stacks today. 

Let’s go by IBM’s 2025 X‑Force Threat Intelligence Index. Only a quarter of GenAI projects are currently secured, and Asia‑Pacific absorbed a third of global cyber‑attacks last year. That’s why Woodpecker seems to arrive at a perfect time when deployments of gen AI are surging, and adversaries look for easy openings. Operant pitches its new project as one way to close that gap without the six‑figure budgets typical of traditional red‑team exercises.

The tool attacks on three fronts. For Kubernetes, it hunts misconfigurations and privilege‑escalation paths. On the API side, it probes authentication, data handling, and business logic flaws. It fires off prompt injection and data poisoning tests for AI workloads, checks for model theft, and tries to bypass guardrails. All findings map to frameworks such as OWASP Top 10, MITRE ATLAS, and NIST.

Security vulnerabilities don’t discriminate based on an organization’s size or resources, we believe red teaming should not be a privilege for a few, it should be a foundational practice for all. With Woodpecker, we’re leveling the playing field by providing enterprise-grade red teaming capabilities in an open source solution that any organization can deploy. Security testing at this depth should be a universal right, not a privilege reserved for those with the largest security budgets.

Vrajesh Bhavasar, CEO and co-founder of Operant AI

Under the hood, Woodpecker links into CI/CD pipelines and runs more than half of the OWASP‑listed threat simulations out of the box. The best part about the engine is that it’s free to modify under an Apache 2.0 license on GitHub.

Early industry feedback leans positive. Prutha Parikh, security head at Cohere and board member of the Coalition for Secure AI, called the project “a practical way to pressure‑test complex GenAI stacks without waiting for an outside pentest window.”

Operant will host hackathons and community events in India to jump-start adoption and work with CoSAI on shared test suites. The company, backed by Felicis and SineWave, was recently named a representative vendor in Gartner’s AI TRiSM market guide.