OWASP TOP 10 - 2025
Introduction
The OWASP Top 10 is a standard awareness document for web application security maintained by the OWASP community. It represents a broad, global consensus on the most critical security risks affecting modern web applications and APIs.
It is not an exhaustive list nor a compliance standard. Instead, it serves as a baseline reference widely used across the industry for security testing, secure design, developer training, and application security programs.
About the 2025 Release
The 2025 edition is the 8th release of the OWASP Top 10. This version reflects the evolution of application security driven by modern architectures, cloud-native deployments, increased reliance on configuration, CI/CD pipelines, and software supply chains.
Key highlights of this release include:
Introduction of new risk categories
Consolidation of related risks (e.g., SSRF integrated into Broken Access Control)
A significantly larger dataset, analyzing hundreds of CWEs
Increased emphasis on root causes rather than symptoms
Incorporation of community-driven insights alongside empirical data
Methodology Overview
The OWASP Top 10:2025 is data-informed, not purely data-driven.
The ranking is derived from a combination of:
Large-scale security testing data collected from millions of applications
Exploitability and impact metrics based on CVSS scoring
Analysis of Common Weakness Enumerations (CWEs)
A community survey capturing real-world trends observed by AppSec professionals
This hybrid approach ensures that emerging and hard-to-test risks are represented, even when they are underreported in automated testing data.
OWASP Top 10:2025 Categories
A01:2025
Broken Access Control
A02:2025
Security Misconfiguration
A03:2025
Software Supply Chain Failures
A04:2025
Cryptographic Failures
A05:2025
Injection
A06:2025
Insecure Design
A07:2025
Authentication Failures
A08:2025
Software or Data Integrity Failures
A09:2025
Security Logging & Alerting Failures
A10:2025
Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions
Each category groups multiple CWEs and focuses on root causes such as insecure design decisions, misconfigurations, weak controls, or flawed assumptions in application logic.
Conceptual Grouping of OWASP Top 10:2025 Risks
While the OWASP Top 10 lists risks as individual categories, many of them are closely related and share common root causes. Grouping them conceptually helps to better understand how weaknesses emerge across authentication, design, and data handling layers.
This section provides a thematic view of the OWASP Top 10:2025.
OWASP Top 10:2025 — IAAA Failures
(Identification, Authentication, Authorization & Accountability)
This group focuses on failures in the IAAA security model, which governs who can access the system, what they are allowed to do, and how actions are tracked.
Related categories:
A01:2025 – Broken Access Control
A07:2025 – Authentication Failures
A09:2025 – Security Logging & Alerting Failures
These risks commonly result in:
Unauthorized access
Privilege escalation
Account compromise
Undetected or late-detected attacks
OWASP Top 10:2025 — Application Design Flaws
This group highlights weaknesses introduced before code is written, often due to poor architectural decisions, insecure defaults, or flawed assumptions about trust boundaries and system behavior.
Related categories:
A02:2025 – Security Misconfiguration
A03:2025 – Software Supply Chain Failures
A06:2025 – Insecure Design
A10:2025 – Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions
These risks typically stem from:
Missing or ineffective security controls
Insecure architecture or workflows
Weak operational processes
Failure to anticipate abnormal or failure states
OWASP Top 10:2025 — Insecure Data Handling
This group focuses on how data is processed, stored, transmitted, and trusted within an application and its supporting systems.
Related categories:
A04:2025 – Cryptographic Failures
A05:2025 – Injection
A08:2025 – Software or Data Integrity Failures
These risks often lead to:
Sensitive data exposure
Data tampering
Remote code execution
Loss of trust in application artifacts or communications
Why This Grouping Matters
Viewing the OWASP Top 10 through these domains helps:
Identify systemic weaknesses instead of isolated bugs
Prioritize security efforts by root cause
Align security testing with real-world attack paths
Improve communication between security, development, and architecture teams
Purpose of This Section
In this portfolio, the OWASP Top 10:2025 is used as:
A reference framework for web penetration testing
A structured way to analyze and understand real-world application risks
A foundation for documenting attack scenarios and exploitation techniques
A guide for mapping vulnerabilities to impact and remediation
Each category will be documented with a consistent structure, including technical context, testing approach, impact analysis, and mitigation guidance.
Scope and Limitations
The OWASP Top 10 is primarily an awareness document:
It defines a minimum baseline, not a complete security standard
It does not replace in-depth verification frameworks
Some categories (e.g., Insecure Design, Logging & Alerting) require contextual analysis beyond automated testing
This section focuses on web applications and APIs, emphasizing practical security testing and offensive security perspectives.
Roadmap
Planned content for this section includes:
Detailed breakdown of each A0X category
Practical testing methodology per risk
Attack scenarios and exploitation examples
Hands-on labs and write-ups
Technical notes derived from real testing environments
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