Cequence Security is an API security tools vendor that combines API discovery, posture management, runtime protection, and bot defense in a single platform. The company processes over 10 billion API interactions daily for Fortune 500 financial institutions, retailers, telecom providers, and healthcare organizations.
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Cequence was named a Leader in the 2025 KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for API Security and ranked #128 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. The company also contributes to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (2023, 2024, and 2025 editions) and was recognized as a Leader and Outperformer in the GigaOm API Security Radar.
What is Cequence Security?
Most API security tools detect threats but depend on a separate WAF or API gateway to actually block attacks. Cequence deploys inline and blocks malicious requests directly, cutting the gap between detection and mitigation.
The platform is organized around three pillars:
Cequence also offers CQ Prime, a managed threat research team that maintains what the company describes as the largest database of malicious behaviors and known-bad infrastructure.
Key Features
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Deployment | SaaS, on-premises, hybrid. Deploys in as little as 15 minutes |
| Regions | Available across 31+ geographic regions |
| Certifications | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, PCI DSS 3.2.1 |
| Integrations | 300+ application integrations |
| Traffic capacity | 10B+ daily API interactions |
| Architecture | Kubernetes-based, flexible scaling |
Native Inline Blocking
Cequence deploys as a reverse proxy (called Defender) inline with your API traffic. This lets it block malicious requests in real time instead of sending alerts to a separate enforcement system.
Blocking policies are granular:
- Block known malicious IPs and fingerprints immediately
- Rate limit suspicious traffic while allowing legitimate requests
- Geo-fence requests by geographic origin
- Serve fake responses to deceive and slow down attackers
- Flag traffic for analysis without blocking
The Defender adds roughly 8-10 milliseconds of latency per request-response transaction in inline mode. For environments where inline deployment isn’t feasible, the Sensor component operates out-of-band by analyzing mirrored traffic with zero latency impact.
Behavioral Fingerprinting
Rather than relying on IP addresses or user agents alone, Cequence builds behavioral fingerprints that track how clients interact with APIs over time. This catches attackers who:
- Rotate through thousands of IP addresses
- Mimic legitimate browser characteristics
- Distribute attacks across many sessions
- Use residential proxies to appear as normal users
Fingerprints incorporate request timing patterns, API call sequences, device characteristics, and interaction behaviors that are difficult to fake. The ML engine classifies threats by industry-specific patterns: telecom CPNI enumeration, retail inventory abuse, and financial services fraud each have distinct detection models.
Bot Management
Cequence handles automated threats across web, mobile, and API channels from a single product rather than treating bot management as a bolt-on:
- Credential stuffing — Detects and blocks attempts to test stolen username/password combinations
- Account takeover — Identifies unauthorized access to legitimate accounts
- Inventory hoarding — Prevents bots from holding items in shopping carts during flash sales
- Content scraping — Stops automated harvesting of pricing, product, or proprietary data
- Fake account creation — Blocks automated registration of fraudulent accounts
- Gift card and loyalty abuse — Detects fraudulent redemption schemes
No client-side JavaScript or SDK is required. Detection operates at the network level, which means it works for APIs and headless traffic where browser-based bot detection fails.
API Discovery and Inventory
Cequence discovers APIs using both inside-out (traffic analysis) and outside-in (external scanning) methods. It picks up:
- Endpoint URLs, methods, and response schemas
- Authentication mechanisms in use
- PII and sensitive data types (with ML-based detection that distinguishes between data formats globally)
- Shadow APIs outside official documentation
- API gateways, infrastructure components, and cloud hosting providers
A Flow Graph view maps out API call paths and dependencies, which helps when hunting for rogue endpoints or unexpected data flows.
AI Gateway
The AI Gateway is a newer product that makes enterprise applications accessible to AI agents through the Model Context Protocol (MCP).
It works by translating MCP requests from AI agents into application-native API calls. Three steps to deploy:
- Connect applications via existing APIs or OpenAPI/Swagger specifications
- Configure authentication (passthrough or OAuth 2.0 identity providers)
- Deploy the MCP server (fully managed cloud or self-managed via Helm Chart)
The AI Gateway includes a Trusted MCP Registry that transforms official APIs into MCP-compatible endpoints. This avoids the risk of rogue MCP servers. Organizations can optionally enable Cequence’s full UAP protection on the gateway with a single toggle.
WAAP
Cequence’s Web Application and API Protection bundles four capabilities into a single SaaS deployment:
- API Security — Discovery, testing, and runtime protection
- Bot Management — Behavioral detection and mitigation
- WAF — OWASP Top 10 coverage, Log4j and Java deserialization pattern matching
- DDoS Protection — Layer 3/4/7 mitigation with 99.99% availability SLA
The WAAP runs from a single SaaS tenant rather than chaining separate products, which eliminates the latency from routing traffic through multiple hops.
Integrations
Cequence integrates with API gateways, CDNs, cloud providers, WAFs, and observability platforms.
Apigee
Broadcom
Kong
MuleSoft
Software AG
Akamai
Cloudflare
Fastly
AWS
Azure
GCP
NGINX
Envoy
Tetrate
Istio
Splunk
DatadogThe platform also pushes events to ServiceNow, Jira, Slack, and PagerDuty for ticketing and alerting workflows.
Deployment Options
Cequence supports three deployment models:
Inline (Active): Deploy the Defender as a reverse proxy for real-time blocking. Recommended for production APIs where immediate mitigation matters.
Out-of-Band (Passive): Analyze mirrored traffic through the Sensor component. Zero latency impact. Useful when inline deployment isn’t feasible or as a first step before going inline.
Hybrid: Inline on critical APIs, traffic mirroring on everything else. Gives full visibility while limiting inline deployment to high-priority endpoints.
All three options work across SaaS, on-premises (Kubernetes-based), and hybrid environments.
Getting Started
Cequence says deployment can finish in as little as 15 minutes. The CQ Prime team also offers managed services for organizations that want help with onboarding and ongoing threat monitoring.
Customer Results
Cequence counts Fortune 500 companies across financial services, retail, telecom, and healthcare among its customers. A few published results:
- Ulta Beauty — Blocked 85.9 million malicious requests over a two-week period during a fragrance inventory scraping attack, with 17 million blocked at the attack’s peak. The company reported $1.7 million in savings with a two-month ROI.
- Poshmark — Achieved 80-90% automatic bot blocking with reduced account takeover incidents.
- T-Mobile — Long-standing customer of over 25 years in API protection.
According to Cequence, the platform covers 4 billion user accounts and 1 in 15 mobile users worldwide.
When to Use Cequence Security
Cequence is built for organizations that need to actually block API attacks, not just detect them.
It works well when you:
- Need real-time blocking without depending on a separate WAF
- Face credential stuffing, inventory hoarding, or scraping attacks at scale
- Handle sensitive financial, healthcare, or customer data through APIs
- Want a single platform for API security and bot management rather than two separate products
- Process high-volume API traffic across multiple gateways and cloud providers
Consider alternatives if:
- You only need API discovery and testing without runtime protection — tools like 42Crunch focus on that
- Budget constraints favor open-source options
- Your API traffic volume doesn’t justify enterprise tooling
- You prefer a detection-only approach with your existing WAF handling enforcement
Note: Founded 2015. Deloitte Technology Fast 500 (2025) #128. Protects 10B daily API interactions. Verizon DBIR contributor (2023-2025).
