What the OWASP Top 10 is
It's the list of the 10 most critical and most common risk categories in web applications, maintained by OWASP, a non-profit organization dedicated to software security. It's updated periodically and used as a reference in virtually every pentest and security audit worldwide.
The 10 categories
- Broken access control: when the system doesn't properly verify whether whoever is requesting a resource actually has permission to view or change it. Includes IDOR, which we've covered in a separate post.
- Cryptographic failures: sensitive data stored or transmitted without proper protection.
- Injection: user input that turns into a command executed by the system, like SQL injection.
- Insecure design: a flaw baked into the system's design before a single line of code is written.
- Security misconfiguration: an exposed service, overly permissive settings, an insecure default configuration left exactly as it shipped.
- Vulnerable and outdated components: a library or dependency with a publicly known vulnerability.
- Identification and authentication failures: login, session, or password recovery implemented weakly.
- Software and data integrity failures: a build, update, or deploy process that doesn't verify the integrity of what's being installed.
- Security logging and monitoring failures: an attack happening without anyone noticing, for lack of logging and alerting.
- Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF): the server being tricked into making a request to an address the attacker chooses.
Why this list matters for your SaaS
It's not academic theory. It's literally what a real pentest tests item by item, and it's the reference any compliance audit will use to evaluate your application.
Want to know how your application holds up against this list?
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