OWASP Top Ten

The OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities for 2024 highlight the most critical security risks for web applications. This list is essential for developers and security professionals to understand and mitigate the most common threats. Here is a summary of the current OWASP Top 10:

1. Broken Access Control: This occurs when an application improperly implements access controls, allowing unauthorized users to perform actions they shouldn’t. It is a leading cause of breaches, often due to failures in enforcing role-based access or proper authorization checks.
2. Cryptographic Failures: Previously known as Sensitive Data Exposure, this vulnerability involves the improper use of cryptography, leading to exposure of sensitive data. Issues can arise from weak or outdated encryption, poor key management, and failure to secure data in transit or at rest.
3. Injection: Injection attacks, such as SQL injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. This can result in unauthorized access to data, loss of data integrity, and other security breaches.
4. Insecure Design: This broad category encompasses flaws in the design phase that lead to security weaknesses. It emphasizes the need for threat modeling, secure design patterns, and continuous security assessments throughout the development lifecycle.
5. Security Misconfiguration: This happens when security settings are not defined, implemented, or maintained correctly, leading to vulnerabilities. Common issues include using default configurations, unnecessary features being enabled, or outdated software.
6. Vulnerable and Outdated Components: Applications often use components with known vulnerabilities or are outdated, which can be exploited by attackers. Regularly updating and managing software dependencies is crucial to mitigate this risk.
7. Identification and Authentication Failures: Weaknesses in user authentication systems can lead to unauthorized access, identity theft, and session hijacking. Implementing multi-factor authentication and secure password policies can help mitigate these risks.
8. Software and Data Integrity Failures: This involves the failure to ensure the integrity of software and data, often due to untrusted sources or inadequate validation of updates. This can lead to unauthorized modifications and compromise of the software.
9. Security Logging and Monitoring Failures: Without adequate logging and monitoring, detecting and responding to security incidents becomes challenging, leading to prolonged breaches and data loss. Effective monitoring is crucial for early detection of attacks.
10. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF): SSRF occurs when an application fetches resources without validating the URL, allowing attackers to send malicious requests to unintended destinations, bypassing firewalls and potentially leading to further attacks.

These vulnerabilities emphasize the importance of implementing robust security practices throughout the software development lifecycle to protect against evolving threats​(

Wattlecorp,

TeqSec,

Kiuwan).

Examples

Here are examples for some of the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, illustrating how they can manifest in real-world scenarios:

1. Broken Access Control

Example: A web application has an admin panel accessible via /admin. Normally, this should only be accessible to users with administrative privileges. However, due to improper access control checks, any authenticated user can access this page by directly navigating to the URL, allowing unauthorized users to perform admin-level tasks, such as deleting user accounts or viewing sensitive data.

Mitigation: Implement role-based access control and validate user permissions before allowing access to sensitive resources.

2. Cryptographic Failures

Example: A web application transmits sensitive data, like credit card numbers, over HTTP instead of HTTPS. This lack of encryption allows attackers to intercept and read the data in transit, leading to data breaches.

Mitigation: Use HTTPS to encrypt data in transit and ensure that all sensitive data is encrypted using strong, industry-standard algorithms.

3. Injection

Example: An application takes user input from a form field and inserts it directly into an SQL query without sanitization:

sqlCopy codeSELECT * FROM users WHERE username = 'input_username' AND password = 'input_password';

If an attacker enters input_username as admin' --, the query becomes:

sqlCopy codeSELECT * FROM users WHERE username = 'admin' --' AND password = '';

This effectively bypasses the password check, allowing the attacker to log in as an admin.

Mitigation: Use prepared statements and parameterized queries to ensure that user inputs are treated as data, not executable code.

4. Insecure Design

Example: A developer designs an application without considering security implications, such as not implementing proper session timeout mechanisms. An attacker could hijack an active session by guessing a valid session ID, leading to unauthorized access.

Mitigation: Conduct threat modeling during the design phase to identify potential security risks and incorporate secure design patterns to mitigate those risks.

5. Security Misconfiguration

Example: A company deploys a web server with default settings, including default passwords and open ports that are unnecessary for its operation. An attacker exploits these default settings to gain unauthorized access to the server, leading to data compromise.

Mitigation: Regularly review and update configurations, disable unnecessary features, and use secure default settings.

6. Vulnerable and Outdated Components

Example: An application uses an outdated version of a popular JavaScript library that has a known vulnerability. Attackers exploit this vulnerability to execute arbitrary code within the user’s browser, leading to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

Mitigation: Regularly update all software components, libraries, and frameworks to their latest, secure versions, and monitor for any known vulnerabilities in the components used.

7. Identification and Authentication Failures

Example: A web application does not enforce strong password policies, allowing users to set weak passwords like “123456”. An attacker uses a brute force attack to guess the passwords of multiple accounts, gaining unauthorized access to sensitive data.

Mitigation: Enforce strong password policies, implement multi-factor authentication, and limit the number of failed login attempts to prevent brute force attacks.

8. Software and Data Integrity Failures

Example: An application automatically updates from an untrusted source without verifying the integrity of the updates. An attacker compromises the update server and distributes malicious updates that, once installed, give the attacker control over the application and its data.

Mitigation: Use code signing and verify the integrity of all updates and third-party components before deployment.

9. Security Logging and Monitoring Failures

Example: A company does not monitor or log failed login attempts on its web application. An attacker performs a brute force attack over several weeks, eventually gaining access to several accounts without being detected.

Mitigation: Implement comprehensive logging of security-related events and set up alerts for suspicious activities like repeated failed login attempts.

10. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)

Example: An application allows users to submit URLs for validation. An attacker submits a URL pointing to an internal network service (e.g., http://localhost/admin). The server fetches the URL and inadvertently exposes sensitive internal data or allows the attacker to perform administrative actions.

Mitigation: Validate and sanitize all user-supplied URLs, enforce strict network controls, and limit the use of URL fetching to trusted sources only.

These examples highlight how these vulnerabilities can be exploited and offer strategies for mitigation to improve the security of web applications.

Public Known Cases

Here are some notable public cases where OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities have been exploited:

1. Broken Access Control

• Case: Facebook (2018)
  • What Happened: Facebook experienced a major breach where attackers exploited a vulnerability in the “View As” feature, which allowed them to steal access tokens. These tokens could be used to take over user accounts without needing to enter a password.
  • Impact: Around 50 million accounts were affected, making it one of the largest data breaches in Facebook’s history.
  • Source: TechCrunch

2. Cryptographic Failures

• Case: Equifax (2017)
  • What Happened: The Equifax breach was partially due to cryptographic failures, where sensitive data was not properly encrypted. Attackers accessed a vulnerability in the Apache Struts web application framework and stole sensitive information.
  • Impact: Personal information of 147 million people was compromised, including social security numbers, birth dates, and addresses.
  • Source: Wired

3. Injection

• Case: Heartland Payment Systems (2008)
  • What Happened: An SQL injection attack allowed hackers to infiltrate Heartland Payment Systems’ network, leading to the theft of over 130 million credit card numbers.
  • Impact: This breach resulted in significant financial losses and legal consequences for the company.
  • Source: CSO Online

4. Insecure Design

• Case: Zoom (2020)
  • What Happened: Zoom’s rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic exposed several design flaws, including the use of weak encryption protocols and inadequate password protection for meetings. This led to incidents of “Zoom-bombing,” where uninvited attendees could disrupt meetings.
  • Impact: Widespread privacy concerns and the temporary ban of Zoom in several organizations, including schools and governments.
  • Source: The Verge

5. Security Misconfiguration

• Case: Capital One (2019)
  • What Happened: A misconfigured firewall allowed a hacker to access a Capital One server, leading to the theft of sensitive personal data of over 100 million customers.
  • Impact: The breach resulted in major reputational damage and a significant financial penalty for Capital One.
  • Source: New York Times

6. Vulnerable and Outdated Components

• Case: Apache Struts and Equifax (2017)
  • What Happened: The Equifax breach was also tied to the use of an outdated version of Apache Struts, which had a known vulnerability that was not patched in time.
  • Impact: See above (Cryptographic Failures).
  • Source: CSO Online

7. Identification and Authentication Failures

• Case: Twitter (2013)
  • What Happened: A vulnerability in Twitter’s password reset system allowed attackers to gain access to about 250,000 user accounts. The flaw involved not properly securing session cookies, which could be used to hijack user accounts.
  • Impact: Though the breach was relatively small, it highlighted significant weaknesses in Twitter’s security.
  • Source: TechCrunch

8. Software and Data Integrity Failures

• Case: SolarWinds (2020)
  • What Happened: Hackers compromised the build process of SolarWinds’ Orion software, inserting a backdoor into the software updates. This allowed attackers to infiltrate several U.S. government agencies and private companies.
  • Impact: The breach affected over 18,000 SolarWinds customers and resulted in a significant national security crisis.
  • Source: Reuters

9. Security Logging and Monitoring Failures

• Case: Target (2013)
  • What Happened: Target experienced a massive breach where hackers stole 40 million credit card numbers. The breach was undetected for several weeks because of inadequate security logging and monitoring.
  • Impact: The breach resulted in significant financial losses and damage to Target’s reputation.
  • Source: Krebs on Security

10. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)

• Case: Capital One (2019)
  • What Happened: The same breach that involved security misconfiguration also involved SSRF. The attacker exploited SSRF vulnerabilities to access Capital One’s cloud servers and retrieve sensitive data.
  • Impact: See above (Security Misconfiguration).
  • Source: New York Times

These cases illustrate the widespread impact that OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities can have, emphasizing the importance of addressing these risks in software development and IT security practices.