The OWASP Top 10: A Hacker’s Hit List (And How to Defend Against It)
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Summary
The OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) has published its Top 10 list of vulnerabilities since 2003, helping developers defend their software against common attacks.
For 2021, the number one vulnerability is broken access control, which enables hackers to exploit inadequate authentication, authorization and auditing to gain unrestricted access to endangered services, resources and data.
Other vulnerabilities include cryptographic failures (insufficient encryption of data), injection attacks (which allow malicious SQL statements to be executed as though they were part of the application’s code), inadequate security testing, and open redirect, where a hacker can redirect legitimate users to malicious websites.
Such vulnerabilities have led to high-profile data breaches, including the loss of 50 million Facebook accounts in 2018, and the theft of 147 million Equifax records due to weak Transport Layer Security (TLS).