Based on data submitted by the community, the OWASP team determines the top eight vulnerabilities on its list, providing visibility into the vulnerabilities that are most common in production code today. Organizations were asked to submit the CWEs that they saw in testing and the number of applications tested that contained at least one instance of a CWE. The resulting 400 CWEs were then analyzed based on impact and exploitability https://remotemode.net/ and classified to produce eight of the top ten categories. Identification and authentication failures occur when an application cannot correctly resolve the subject attempting to gain access to an information service or properly verify the proof presented as validation of the entity. This issue manifests as a lack of MFA, allowing brute force-style attacks, exposing session identifiers, and allowing weak or default passwords.

  • This document was written by developers for developers to assist those new to secure development.
  • If an organization lacks visibility into the external code that is used within its applications — including nested dependencies — and fails to scan it for dependencies, then it may be vulnerable to exploitation.
  • One is blacklisting, where you compare the input against a list of malicious content.
  • This control requires organizations to continually gather and analyze information about security threats to proactively mitigate risk.
  • This requirement contains both an action to verify that no default passwords exist, and also carries with it the guidance that no default passwords should be used within the application.
  • These checklists provide suggestions that certainly should be tailored to
    an individual project’s requirements and environment; they are not meant to be followed in their entirety.
  • This can be a very difficult task and developers are often set up for failure.

For more information about the security threats to your cloud-based applications, check out this eBook. This resource provides information on the most common vulnerabilities, examples of each type, best practices for preventing them, and descriptions of how the vulnerability can be exploited. Additionally, each vulnerability includes references to related Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) specifications, which describe a particular instance of a vulnerability. For example, the use of hard-coded passwords (CWE-259) falls under the Identification and Authentication Failures vulnerability within the OWASP Top Ten List. There is no specific mapping from the Proactive Controls for Insecure Design.

Implement Digital Identity Checklist

Here’s how to apply OWASP Proactive Control C5 (Validate All Inputs) to your code. You need to protect data whether it is in transit (over the network) or at rest (in storage). Some of this has become easier over the years (namely using HTTPS and protecting data in transit). You may even be tempted to come up with your own solution instead of handling those sharp edges.

owasp top 10 proactive controls

Authentication is the process of verifying that an individual or entity is who they claim to be. Session management is a process by which a server maintains the state of the users authentication
so that the user may continue to use the system owasp top 10 proactive controls without re-authenticating. Ensure that access to all data stores is secure, including both relational databases and NoSQL databases. Probably the best advice on checklists is given by the Application Security Verification Standard (ASVS).

Validate all the things: improve your security with input validation!

This document is intended to provide initial awareness around building secure software. This document will also provide a good foundation of topics to help drive introductory software security developer training. These controls should be used consistently and thoroughly throughout all applications.