[WebPub] Top 10 Web Application Security Risks

[Allison Dolan]

In case this item re: web applicationvulnerabilities is of interest

Allison F. Dolan
Program Director, Protecting Personally Identifiable Information
NE49-3021 (mail stop)  NE49-3037p (office)
(617) 252-1461
http://mit.edu/infoprotect



OWASP Issues Top 10 Web Application Security Risks List

Final version of Top 10, published today, focuses on actual risks  
versus vulnerabilities

By Kelly Jackson Higgins,  DarkReading
April 19, 2010
URL:http://www.darkreading.com/story/showArticle.jhtml? 
articleID=224400676

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) today issued the  
final version of its new Top 10 list of application security risks.

The list, which was first unveiled in November at the OWASP  
conference, is a departure from OWASP's previous lists, which ranked  
the most commonly found weaknesses and vulnerabilities in Web  
applications. OWASP's new list features the most exploitable and  
likely security risks found in these apps.

OWASP reworked the list to provide developers with more of a reality  
check and understanding of the real threats, OWASP members say. "This  
is putting it into perspective...looking at the things that are most  
likely to be exploited and how useful [this flaw or weakness] would  
be for an attacker to get access to an application or sensitive  
information," says Josh Abraham, a member of OWASP who worked on the  
list and is a security researcher with Rapid7.

The OWASP Top 10 list for 2010 comprises:

1. injection 2. cross-site scripting (XSS) 3. broken authentication  
and session management 4. insecure direct object references 5. cross- 
site request forgery (CSRF) 6. security misconfiguration 7. insecure  
cryptographic storage 8. failure to restrict URL access 9.  
insufficient transport layer protection 10. unvalidated redirects and  
forwards
New to the list are security misconfiguration and unvalidated  
redirects and forwards, all of which are prevalent today. Web  
redirects typically steer users to other pages and sites, and when  
the data for the destination pages isn't properly validated, users  
can be redirected to phishing or malware sites by attackers.

OWASP's Abraham says security misconfiguration in Web applications is  
becoming more common because there are so many more configuration  
options for developers. "If they are left vulnerable, then the  
attacker can go after weaknesses in the framework," he says.

And he's seeing more unvalidated redirects and forwards in apps.  
"That affects a lot of different organizations. I'm happy to see that  
in the list this year," Abraham says.

Dropped from previous OWASP lists are malicious file execution and  
information leakage/improper error-handling. Malicious file execution  
is still a problem, but now that PHP ships with default security,  
it's less of a risk, according to OWASP. And while information  
leakage/improper error-handling remain rampant vulnerabilities, the  
impact of them isn't usually as critical.

The OWASP Top 10 report -- available for download here -- also  
includes how to assess the possibility that your Web application  
could be at risk of these types of Web attacks, as well as mitigation  
tips.


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