Top TEN OWASP Security Risks for your website security audit

Open Web Application Security Project(OWASP) is an Online community serving as a non-profit organization that makes and provides free articles, tools, technologies, approaches, and documentation in the working Web Application Development. So, every three to four years, OWASP gives us updates on the risks, impacts of the common application’s vulnerabilities. Every online business needs to stay updated on OWASP security risks audit checklist vulnerabilities for website because the security of any internet-based business is unpredictable.

Let’s explore the top 10 OWASP security risks audit checklist and the preventive measures to mitigate vulnerabilities for your website.

Top 10 OWASP Security Risks and Steps to be taken to Prevent the Vulnerabilities:

SQL Injection:

Let’s discuss precautions to avoid code injection vulnerabilities, where hackers send invalid code to a web application to perform unintended actions.

• Keep your data separate from commands and queries.
• Use a Safe API, as it avoids the use of interpreter completely or provides a parameterized connection or move to Object Relational Mapping tool(ORM)
• SQL structures like column names and table names cannot run away; thus, the user-provided structure names are dangerous.
• Make use of LIMIT and few other SQL controls within the queries to block huge exposure of records in case of SQL injection.

Hence, it’s essential to separate data from the web application and implement measures to prevent SQL injection. Attackers exploiting these vulnerabilities can compromise website security and leak confidential information.

Broken Authentication:

Authentication compromise occurs when a hacker obtains a user’s password, keys, session tokens, or other account details, granting them control over the system.. Basically, a broken authentication takes place due to the logical issues within the application authentication mechanism, such as bad session management vulnerable to username enumeration. So, in order to minimize the risk, the user needs to avoid leaving the login page for admin, publically accessible by all the viewers of the website. Now, let’s delve into the types of broken authentication and the steps needed to mitigate this vulnerability in any web application.

• Types of Broken Authentication
• Reveals the session ID in the URL.
• Allows default, fragile, and easily known passwords like”Password123″ or “admin.”
• No change in the session ID after successful login
• A session ID is not properly disabled.
• Use of encrypted, plain text, weak passwords.

Now let’s delve into the measures to prevent broken authentication.

• Need to implement checks on weak passwords against a list of top 10,000 bad passwords.
• Try not to deploy the web application with default credentials.
• Always set up the password length and rotation policies with NIST-800-63 B’s guidelines in section 5.1.1.
• Session IDs shouldn’t be in the URL
• Try to limit the login attempts that were failed.

Sensitive Data Disclosure:

One of the most common vulnerabilities is sensitive data exposure. Let us check the examples of sensitive data

• Personally identifiable information
• Credit card numbers 
• Medical information
• Social Security number(SSN)
• Other personal information and credentials

It is very crucial for any organization when it comes to securing a user’s information. There are basically two types of data:

• Stored data where the data is at rest
• Transmitted data where the data is transmitted between the servers or the web browsers.

Protect both data types. When transmitting data, deploy an SSL certificate on the website for security. SSL certificates encrypt data exchanged between the host and client, reducing the risk of attacks. Unencrypted data is vulnerable, but even encrypted data can be compromised by weak encryption algorithms.

• Password hashing storing techniques
• Use of Protocol 
• Use of Cipher 
• Key generation process
• Key management process
• Use of  Algorithm 

 Let us now understand the steps to be taken to prevent data exposure:

• We need to classify the data stored, the data processing, and the data transmitted by an application.
• We need to identify sensitive data according to the privacy laws or regulatory requirements.
• Need to encrypt the data which is at rest.
• Disable the caching option that contains sensitive data.
• I need to verify the benefits of configuration and settings.
• Make use of strong passwords and hashing functions such as Argon2,bcrypt,scrypt, or PBKDF2.

XML External Entities(XXE):

This type of attack happens when an incorrectly configured XML parser is linked to an external entity. So, the XML external entity attack vectors include the manipulation of:

• Vulnerable integrations
• Vulnerable code
• Vulnerable dependencies
• Vulnerable XML processors if hackers can upload XML

So, let’s understand the steps to be followed to prevent the XML external entity attack.

• The use of the SAST tool is used to detect XXE in the source code.
• Restrict the XML external entity and DTD setting up in all the XML parsers within the application.
• Make use of the dependency checkers.
• Try to make use of less complex data formats such as JSON and avoid making changes to sensitive data.
• Enhance all XML processors and libraries used by the application to mitigate vulnerabilities.

Broken Access Control:

Access control refers to setting up a certain time limit on a particular session or page on a website so that the users can visit the site depending on their requirements. Let us check some of the examples of broken access control.

• Peeking the sensitive information.
• Accessing the unauthorized data or functionality

So, to avoid broken access control, it is required to develop and frame software with security. So, let us understand the preventive measures for Broken Access control.

• Need to disable the web server directory listing and need to make sure that the metadata and backup files are not available within the webroot directory.
• After the logout, the JWT token has to be nullified at the server.
• Record access control failures and alert the administrator when required.
• The developers and QA staff should conduct functional access control unit tests and integration tests.
• Try to implement the access control process and reuse them everywhere in the application, minimizing cross-origin resource sharing usage.

Security Defects:

One of the most common webmaster flaws is to keep the CMS configurations default. Currently, most attacks are automated, relying on default user settings for success. So, let’s understand the security defects that take place at any stage of the application stack.

• Web Server
• Application server
• Frameworks
• Database
• Network services
• Custom code

 So, in order to prevent security defect, let’s follow the steps below:

• A small platform without any unnecessary documents, features, and samples.
• Never install any unused frameworks and configurations.
• Try to view the permissions within cloud storage.
• Send Security directions to the clients such as security headers.
• Try to implement an automated process that certifies the configuration and settings in every framework.

Cross-site scripting(XSS):

A cross-site scripting enables the hacker to implant client-side scripts into the web pages viewed by the users over the website. If this vulnerability remains unaddressed, it could pose significant risks to any website. Let us check the three types of cross-site scripting.

• Stored XSS: Here in this type of scripting, the application or the API stores the corrupted user’s input, which can be used by another user or admin at some other time. This type of cross-site scripting is very risky and critical.

• Reflected XSS: In this type of scripting, the user interacts with inappropriate links, such as advertisements or similar content.

• DOM XSS: Applications which are a single page, the javascript frameworks, and the API’s that effectively includes hackers manageable data to a page, are vulnerable to DOM XSS.

To prevent XSS vulnerability, follow these steps.

• Make use of technologies such as Sucuri Firewall that helps in reducing the risk of XSS vulnerability.
• Understanding the limitations of each framework’s XSS protection is crucial for effectively addressing any uncovered use cases.
• Enable Content Security Policy(CSP), which helps in controlling against XSS vulnerability.
• Avoiding the request from an untrusted HTTP site reduces the risk of Stored and reflected XSS.

Insecure Deserialization:

Deserialization involves converting strings to objects, and insecure string-to-object conversion is identified as a vulnerability in OWASP guidelines. If the hacker is able to deserialize the object without any failure, then he can serialize it again by changing the object, presenting himself as the admin. This action could make things complex in the complete web application.

Let’s explore the measures to prevent this vulnerability.

• Monitor and alert if any user deserializes constantly.
• Try to isolate and run the codes that try to deserialize in the low authorized environment.

Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities:

Maybe we are aware or not, but the fact is we mostly work with unsupported, unprotected and out of date applications, databases, servers, and all the components and runtime entities which makes our application vulnerable to many types of attacks as discussed above.

Let’s review the steps to avoid using components with known vulnerabilities.

• Try to remove all the dependencies that are not unnecessary.
• Get the components from the official sources.
• Avoid using components that are not actively maintained.
• Use virtual blocking with the help of the Website application firewall.
• To check the vulnerabilities in the components, make use of Common Vulnerabilities and disclosure (CVD) and the National Vulnerability Database.

Insufficient logging and monitoring:

It is very important to properly monitor a website because anything noticed as improper or malicious at the monitoring stage, it will help to patch the attack at the first level which reduces the risk to the application and also reduce the effort taken to completely analyze the threat from the root.

Let’s explore the steps to avoid such vulnerabilities.

• Keep the audit reports on the top in order to analyze anything suspicious happening to the website.
• Instead of abandoning the website when software becomes outdated, prioritize its protection. Consider implementing virtual patching if immediate patching isn’t feasible.
• You can make use of security plugins that can block any unwanted links to enter your website.

Conclusion:

The internet is full of threats and security attacks. You need to be careful and adopt a structured approach to be safe. This safety against OWASP security risks with audit checklist is not only for your website but also for the visitors who are visiting the same.   We can provide a OWASP security risks audit checklist and report for your website and comment what areas of your website are very sensitive. Furthermore, Krify has a team of skilled professionals who develop robust mobile and web applications and perform flawless Quality Testing on the application developed. For more information, contact us.