The OWASP Top 10 is a list of the ten most common security concerns in online applications. Developers may construct secure applications that keep their users' personal data safe from attackers by writing code and doing thorough testing with these dangers in mind.
OWASP ?
The Open Web Application Security Project, or OWASP, is a non-profit dedicated to security flaws. Among its efforts are a number of open-source software development programmes and toolkits, as well as local chapters and conferences. The OWASP Top 10, a ranking of the top 10 security vulnerabilities encountered by online applications, is one of their projects.
OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities
So, as according OWASP, and what were the top ten threats? Each item is broken down into its risk level, how to analyze for it, as well as how to manage it.
1. Injection
When an attacker uses insecure code to introduce (or inject) their own code into a programme, this is known as injection. Because the programme can't tell the difference between code inserted this way and its own code, attackers can use injection attacks to get access to secure areas and confidential data as if they were trusted users. SQL injections, command injections, CRLF injections, and LDAP injections are all examples of injections.
2. Broken Authentication
Authentication and session management calls that are incorrectly implemented can create a major security risk. If attackers discover these flaws, they may be able to simply assume the identities of legitimate users.
Multifactor authentication is one method of preventing authentication failures. Before deploying code, run DAST and SCA scans to find and fix issues with implementation errors.
3. Sensitive Data Exposure
APIs, which allows programmers to connect their software to third-party services like Google Maps, can save a lot of work for developers. Some APIs, on the other hand, use insecure data transmission protocols, which attackers might use to steal usernames, passwords, and other sensitive data.
Encryption, encoding, effective key management, and disabling response caching are all ways to limit the danger of sensitive data being exposed.
4. XML External Entities
Because of insecure code, integrations, or dependencies, attackers may be able to upload or insert hostile XML material. An SCA scan can detect dangers in third-party components that have known flaws and alert you to them. The possibility of an XML entity attack is reduced by disabling XML external entity processing.
5. Broken Access Control
It's easy for attackers to grab anything they want if authentication and access restrictions aren't properly enforced. Unauthenticated or unauthorized users may have access to sensitive files and systems, as well as user privilege settings, due to access control weaknesses.
Because automated procedures cannot always test for configuration issues and unsafe access control techniques, they are difficult to identify. While penetration testing can detect missing authentication, other methods are required to identify configuration issues. Secure coding methods, as well as preventative measures such as locking down administrative accounts and controls and employing multi-factor authentication, can help prevent weak access controls and credential management difficulties.
6. Security Misconfiguration
More general security configuration problems, including incorrect access controls, are big hazards that enable attackers quick, simple access to critical data and site regions.
Dynamic testing can aid in the discovery of security flaws in your application.
7. Cross-Site Scripting
Attackers use APIs and DOM manipulation to retrieve data from or transmit commands to your application using cross-site scripting. Threat actors can utilize cross-site scripting to hijack user accounts, examine browser histories, disseminate Trojans and viruses, and manipulate browsers remotely, among other things.
The probability of this risk is reduced by training developers in protocols such as data encoding and input validation. Sanitize your data by ensuring that it has the content you expect for that field and encoding it for the "endpoint" as an added layer of security.
8. Insecure De-serialization
Deserialization, or recovering data and entities that have been written to discs or saved in some other way, can be used to run code in your application remotely or as a gateway to additional attacks. Through typical serialization technologies like JSON and XML, an object is serialized into either a structured or binary text format. This issue occurs when an attacker manipulates an application using untrusted data, launches a denial of service (DoS) attack, or executes unanticipated code to affect the application's behaviour.
While deserialization is difficult to exploit, penetration testing and application security technologies can help to mitigate the risk. Also, don't accept serialised objects from unknown sources, and don't utilise functions that only accept primitive data types.
9. Using Component With Known Vulnerability
Even if your own code is secure, attackers can take advantage of APIs, dependencies, and other third-party components if they aren't.
Insecure components in your programme can be found and neutralised using a static analysis combined with a software composition analysis. Static code analysis tools from Veracode's can help developers detect unsafe components in their code before publishing it.
10. Insufficient Logging and Monitoring
Failure to log failures or assaults, as well as inadequate monitoring techniques, might add a human factor to security issues. Threat actors rely on a lack of monitoring and slower remediation time-frames to launch assaults before you have time to discover or respond.
To avoid problems caused by insufficient logging and monitoring, ensure that all login, access control, and server-side input validation errors are documented with context so that suspicious behavior may be identified. Penetration testing is also an excellent approach to identify portions of your programme that lack enough logging. It's also critical to establish adequate monitoring procedures.
