What is the OWASP Top 10?
Answer
The OWASP Top 10 is a standard awareness document for web application security, representing the most critical security risks. The 2021 edition: (1) Broken Access Control (was #5, now #1). (2) Cryptographic Failures (data exposure). (3) Injection (SQL, NoSQL, OS, LDAP). (4) Insecure Design (new — design-level flaws). (5) Security Misconfiguration. (6) Vulnerable and Outdated Components. (7) Identification and Authentication Failures. (8) Software and Data Integrity Failures (new — insecure deserialization, CI/CD). (9) Security Logging and Monitoring Failures. (10) Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) (new). It is updated every few years based on real-world breach data and industry surveys. Used as a baseline for security assessments and developer training.