RAGTAGS

The OWASP Top 10 (2021) is a curated list of the most critical security risks to web applications. It’s not just for security teams - every developer should understand these risks. Below is a short summary of each, along with why or when it matters most.

SSRF happens when an attacker tricks a server into making a request on their behalf - often to internal systems not meant to be exposed.

This category deals with how well your system can detect and respond to suspicious activity. Most breaches aren’t caught because of lack of alerts - they’re caught because something looked wrong, and someone was paying attention.

This category focuses on trust - specifically, trusting the integrity of software, updates, and data.

This category used to be called “Broken Authentication.” It now covers all failures in how users are identified and authenticated.

Modern applications rely heavily on third-party libraries, frameworks, and packages. When these components are outdated or vulnerable, your app inherits their risks.

Security Misconfiguration happens when systems are deployed with insecure settings - or when default settings aren’t changed at all. This is one of the most common and avoidable issues.

Insecure Design refers to flaws in how a system is planned, not just how it’s built. These aren’t coding bugs - they’re structural issues where security was never considered in the first place.

Injection happens when untrusted input is sent to a system interpreter (like SQL, shell, or HTML) without proper validation or escaping. This lets attackers modify commands and potentially take control.

Cryptographic Failures happen when sensitive data isn’t properly protected - usually because encryption was misused, misconfigured, or skipped entirely.