Keygraph has unveiled Shannon, a fully autonomous artificial intelligence pentester designed to discover and execute real exploits in web applications.
Unlike conventional vulnerability scanners that generate false positives, Shannon bridges a critical security gap by delivering proof-of-concept exploits that demonstrate actual risk before attackers do.
The modern development workflow has created a significant security paradox. Teams using tools like Claude Code and Cursor ship code continuously throughout the year, yet traditional penetration testing occurs only once annually.
Shannon resolves this massive security blind spot by acting as an on-demand whitebox pentester available whenever needed.
Rather than identifying theoretical vulnerabilities, Shannon executes genuine attacks injection exploits, authentication bypasses, cross-site scripting, and server-side request forgery to confirm each finding is truly exploitable.
Bridging the Pentesting Gap
The problem Shannon addresses is straightforward: development velocity has far outpaced security validation.
Teams can deploy dozens of builds daily while penetration tests happen quarterly or annually at best.
This creates 365-day windows of vulnerability exposure. Shannon eliminates this gap by automating the pentesting process, requiring only source code access and a single command to launch comprehensive security analysis.
Shannon’s effectiveness has been validated against industry-standard vulnerable applications.
During testing on OWASP Juice Shop, Shannon discovered over 20 critical vulnerabilities in a single automated run, including complete authentication bypass, database exfiltration via injection attacks, privilege escalation through registration bypass, and server-side request forgery enabling internal network reconnaissance.
Against the Checkmarx Capital API, Shannon identified 15 critical vulnerabilities leading to full application compromise.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Autonomous Operation | Launch pentests with a single command; AI handles everything from 2FA/TOTP logins to final report generation |
| Pentester-Grade Reports | Delivers proven exploits with reproducible proof-of-concepts (PoCs) and zero false positives |
| Critical OWASP Coverage | Identifies and validates Injection, XSS, SSRF, and Broken Authentication/Authorization vulnerabilities |
| Code-Aware Testing | Analyzes source code to guide attack strategy, then performs live browser and CLI-based exploits |
| Integrated Security Tools | Leverages Nmap, Subfinder, WhatWeb, and Schemathesis for deep target environment analysis |
| Parallel Processing | Concurrent analysis and exploitation for all vulnerability types to accelerate findings |
| Real Exploit Validation | Executes actual attacks to confirm vulnerabilities, eliminating theoretical false positives |
| Multi-Phase Architecture | Four-stage methodology: Reconnaissance → Vulnerability Analysis → Exploitation → Reporting |
These results demonstrate Shannon’s capability to move beyond passive scanning toward active exploitation with minimal false positives.
Shannon operates through four distinct phases. The reconnaissance phase builds an attack surface map by analyzing source code and performing live application exploration.
Vulnerability analysis parallelizes specialized agents across OWASP categories to hunt for potential flaws.
The exploitation phase executes real attacks to convert hypotheses into proof. Finally, the reporting phase compiles validated findings into pentester-grade reports with reproducible proof-of-concepts.
Shannon leverages Anthropic’s Claude Agent SDK as its reasoning engine within a sophisticated multi-agent architecture.
It combines white-box source code analysis with black-box dynamic exploitation, integrating tools like Nmap, Subfinder, and WhatWeb for deep environment analysis.
The system operates transparently and enforces a strict “no exploit, no report” policy, eliminating unproven findings.
Shannon represents a paradigm shift in application security testing, transforming automated vulnerability discovery from static analysis into active exploitation validation.
By closing the gap between rapid development cycles and infrequent penetration testing, Shannon enables organizations to ship code with genuine confidence.
Follow us on Google News, LinkedIn, and X to Get Instant Updates and Set GBH as a Preferred Source in Google.