The OWASP Top 10 is a standard awareness document for developers and web application security. It represents a broad consensus about the most critical security risks to web applications. The 2021 version of the OWASP Top 10 provides a framework for developers to learn about the most common web application security risks and how to mitigate them.

Top 10 Risks

Here are the top 10 risks listed in the OWASP Top 10 2021:

  1. Injection: The application is vulnerable to SQL injection, command injection, or other injection attacks.
  2. Broken Authentication: The application has weak authentication mechanisms, such as using default credentials, weak passwords, or session management issues.
  3. Sensitive Data Exposure: The application stores sensitive data in an insecure manner, such as using weak encryption or transmitting sensitive data without encryption.
  4. XSS (Cross-Site Scripting): The application is vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks, where malicious scripts can be injected into web pages viewed by other users.
  5. Insecure Deserialization: The application is vulnerable to insecure deserialization, where untrusted data is deserialized without proper validation.
  6. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities: The application uses components with known vulnerabilities, such as outdated libraries or frameworks.
  7. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring: The application lacks sufficient logging and monitoring mechanisms, making it difficult to detect and respond to security incidents.
  8. Security Misconfiguration: The application has incorrect security settings, such as using default passwords, weak encryption, or open network services.
  9. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities: The application uses components with known vulnerabilities, such as outdated libraries or frameworks.
  10. Insufficient Attack Surface Hardening: The application lacks proper security hardening, such as using secure headers, input validation, and output encoding.

Learn More

For more detailed information about each risk, you can visit the OWASP Top 10 2021 page. It provides comprehensive explanations, examples, and mitigation strategies for each risk.

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