OWASP-Top-10-2010

Description

What is OWASP Top 10?

OWASP Top 10 Project (2010 version) is a set of 10 rules for avoiding common programming errors in web applications.

• A1: Injection
• A2: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
• A3: Broken Authentication and Session Management
• A4: Insecure Direct Object References
• A5: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
• A6: Security Misconfiguration
• A7: Insecure Cryptographic Storage
• A8: Failure to Restrict URL Access
• A9: Insufficient Transport Layer Protection
• A10: Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards

Risk calculation

Risk is calculated from following ratings scheme:

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Easy	Widespread	Easy	Severe	?
	Average	Common	Average	Moderate
	Difficult	Uncommon	Difficult	Minor

• Threat Agent: potential source of the attack (e.g. internal users, external users, ...)
• Attack Vector: the way the attack is launched (e.g. strings in input fields)
• Weakness Prevalence: the term prevalence has been borrowed from the epidemiological field. In a nutshell, it represents the total number of cases in the total number of attacks at a given time.
• Weakness Detectability: indicates whether vulnerability is easily detectable (e.g. code review, scanners, fuzzers, ...)
• Technical Impacts: potential impacts of the attack (e.g. data loss, session theft, denial of access, ...)
• Business Impacts: impact of the attack on the business (e.g. your reputation, credibility, ...)

Classification

A1: Injection

Injection flaws, such as SQL, OS, and LDAP injection, 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 unauthorized data.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Easy	Common	Average	Severe	?

A2: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

XSS flaws occur whenever an application takes untrusted data and sends it to a web browser without proper validation and escaping. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Average	Very widespread	Easy	Moderate	?

A3: Broken Authentication and Session Management

Application functions related to authentication and session management are often not implemented correctly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, session tokens, or exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Average	Common	Average	Severe	?

A4: Insecure Direct Object References

A direct object reference occurs when a developer exposes a reference to an internal implementation object, such as a file, directory, or database key. Without an access control check or other protection, attackers can manipulate these references to access unauthorized data.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Easy	Common	Easy	Moderate	?

A5: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

A CSRF attack forces a logged-on victim's browser to send a forged HTTP request, including the victim's session cookie and any other automatically included authentication information, to a vulnerable web application. This allows the attacker to force the victim's browser to generate requests the vulnerable application thinks are legitimate requests from the victim.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Average	Widespread	Easy	Moderate	?

A6: Security Misconfiguration

Good security requires having a secure configuration defined and deployed for the application, frameworks, application server, web server, database server, and platform. All these settings should be defined, implemented, and maintained as many are not shipped with secure defaults. This includes keeping all software up to date, including all code libraries used by the application.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Easy	Common	Easy	moderate	?

A7: Insecure Cryptographic Storage

Many web applications do not properly protect sensitive data, such as credit cards, SSNs, and authentication credentials, with appropriate encryption or hashing. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct identity theft, credit card fraud, or other crimes.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Difficult	Uncommon	Difficult	Severe	?

A8: Failure to Restrict URL Access

Many web applications check URL access rights before rendering protected links and buttons. However, applications need to perform similar access control checks each time these pages are accessed, or attackers will be able to forge URLs to access these hidden pages anyway.

It includes following attacks:

•  Directory traversal
•  Directory listening
•  Security of .htaccess

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Easy	Uncommon	Average	moderate	?

A9: Insufficient Transport Layer Protection

Applications frequently fail to authenticate, encrypt, and protect the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive network traffic. When they do, they sometimes support weak algorithms, use expired or invalid certificates, or do not use them correctly.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Difficult	Common	Easy	Moderate	?

A10: Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards

Web applications frequently redirect and forward users to other pages and websites, and use untrusted data to determine the destination pages. Without proper validation, attackers can redirect victims to phishing or malware sites, or use forwards to access unauthorized pages.

Threat Agent	Attack Vector	Weakness Prevalence	Weakness Detectability	Technical Impact	Business Impact
?	Average	Uncommon	Easy	Moderate	?