What is the OWASP Top 10?

Purpose and importance of the list

The main goal of the OWASP Top 10 publication is to raise awareness of the most serious web application security risks among developers, architects, managers and security professionals. The list serves as a benchmark and a standard of sorts, indicating areas where organizations should focus their efforts to improve the security of the applications they develop and use. It is also a valuable educational tool and a basis for creating secure coding standards and security testing programs.

Regular updates

The OWASP Top 10 list is not static. It is updated every few years (the last major update was in 2021) to reflect the changing threat landscape, new attack techniques and the evolution of web technologies. The update process is based on analysis of data from multiple sources and consultation with the expert community.

OWASP Top 10 threat categories (using the 2021 version as an example)

The OWASP Top 10 list groups threats into broad categories. The 2021 version includes:

1. Broken Access Control (Błędna kontrola dostępu
2. Cryptographic Failures (Błędy kryptograficzne
3. Injection (Wstrzykiwanie kodu
4. Insecure Design (Niebezpieczny projekt
5. Security Misconfiguration (Błędna konfiguracja bezpieczeństwa
6. Vulnerable and Outdated Components (Podatne i przestarzałe komponenty
7. Identification and Authentication Failures (Błędy identyfikacji i uwierzytelniania
8. Software and Data Integrity Failures (Błędy integralności oprogramowania i danych
9. Security Logging and Monitoring Failures (Błędy logowania i monitorowania bezpieczeństwa
10. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF

How to use OWASP Top 10?

Organizations should consider the OWASP Top 10 as a starting point for building their application security program. It should:

• Train developers: Familiarize development teams with the threats on the list and teach them safe coding practices.
• Incorporate into the SDLC process: Include risks from the list in the design, coding and testing stages of the application.
• Use in testing: Use the list as a basis for creating security test scenarios (manual and automated).
• Apply tools: Use static (SAST) and dynamic (DAST) application security analysis tools that can often detect vulnerabilities from the OWASP Top 10 list.
• Regularly assess risks: Periodically assess your own applications against the risks on the current list.

Summary

The OWASP Top 10 is an extremely valuable and widely recognized resource in the field of web application security. It provides a concise summary of the most critical threats, raises awareness and provides practical tips on how to build more secure applications. Any organization developing or using web applications should be familiar with and follow the recommendations from this list.