OWASP Top 10 Flashcards
What are the top ten OWASP web application security risks?
- Injection
- Broken Authentication
- Sensitive Data Exposure
- XML External Entities (XXE)
- Broken Access Control
- Security Misconfiguration
- Cross-Site Scripting (XXS)
- Insecure Deserialization
- Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities
- Insufficient logging and Monitoring
Define ‘Injection’
Injection flaws refer to SQL, NoSQL, OS and LDAP Injection attacks.
These attacks can occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query.
The Attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization.
Define ‘Broken Authentication’
Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly.
This means attackers can compromise the passwords, keys, or session tokens of users.
They can also exploit other implementation flaws to assume other user’ identities, either temporarily or permanently.
Define ‘Sensitive Data Exposure’
Many web applications and APIs don’t protect sensitive data properly, such as finances, healthcare, and PII.
Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes.
Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser.
Define ‘XML External Entities (XXE)’
Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents.
External entities can be used to disclose internal files using file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks.
Define ‘Broken Access Control’
Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced.
Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other user’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc.
Define ‘Security Misconfiguration’
Security Misconfiguration comes down to insecure default configurations, incomplete or AD HOC configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information.
Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion.
Define ‘Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)’
XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript.
XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to a malicious site.
Define ‘Insecure Deserialization’
Insecure Deserialization often leads to remote code execution.
Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks.
Define ‘Using components with Know Vulnerabilities’
Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application.
If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can be cause serious data loss or a server takeover.
Applications and APIs using components with know vulnerabilities may undermine application defences and enable various attacks and impacts.
Define ‘Insufficient Logging and Monitoring’
Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attacks to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and taper, extract, or destroy data.
Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.
What’s the most common security risk out of all ten?
Security misconfiguration - It is the most commonly seen issue.
