Operant AI Inc., a startup that offers a runtime application protection platform, today announced the launch of Woodpecker, an open-source, automated red teaming engine that helps make advanced security testing accessible to organizations of all sizes.

Woodpecker seeks to assist organizations with security vulnerabilities that are becoming more sophisticated and challenging to detect as cloud-native applications and artificial intelligence technology become more complex. AI vulnerabilities in particular have become a critical concern for security teams, driven by the rapid adoption of large language models and automated agents across enterprise environments.

Operant AI argues that as AI has risen as a threat, red teaming — the security practice where ethical hackers simulate real-world cyberattacks to test a system’s defenses and uncover vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them — has now become increasingly vital. That’s especially s as modern infrastructure grows more complex with the rise of cloud-native applications and AI technologies.

Woodpecker seeks to democratize advanced security testing by making it accessible to every organization, regardless of their size or expertise. At launch, Woodpecker simulates more than half of the Open Worldwide Application Security Projects’ top 10 threats across application programming interfaces, Kubernetes and large language models, exceeding the threat simulation scope of leading commercial red teaming products.

The result gives security teams, developers and DevOps professionals the ability to proactively identify vulnerabilities and build more resilient applications, without the cost and complexity of traditional solutions.

“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,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Vrajesh Bhavsar. “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.”

Woodpecker delivers automated red teaming across three areas, starting with Kubernetes security. The service identifies misconfigurations, privilege escalation paths and insecure deployment patterns within container orchestration environments to help harden infrastructure.

For API security, Woodpecker simulates attack scenarios to uncover flaws in endpoint protection, authentication and data handling. For AI systems, it tests models for prompt injection, data poisoning and other emerging threats specific to machine learning applications.

Operant’s Woodpecker is now available as an open-source project on GitHub.

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