OWASP Top 10 Explained for Non-Security People
The OWASP Top 10 is the definitive list of critical web security risks. Here's what each one means, a real-world example, and how to protect against it.
A01: Broken Access Control
Users accessing data or functions they shouldn't be able to. The most common vulnerability found in real applications. Example: changing a URL parameter from /account/123 to /account/124 and seeing someone else's data.
A02: Cryptographic Failures
Sensitive data stored or transmitted without proper encryption. This includes storing passwords in plain text, using HTTP instead of HTTPS, or using outdated encryption algorithms like MD5.
A03: Injection
Sending hostile data to an interpreter — SQL, OS commands, LDAP queries. SQL injection is the most famous example. A single unparameterized query can expose your entire database.
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A04: Insecure Design
Security flaws baked into the application architecture — not just implementation bugs. No amount of patching fixes a fundamentally insecure design.
A05: Security Misconfiguration
Default credentials, unnecessary features enabled, missing security headers, verbose error messages exposing stack traces. This is the most findable category — and UebGuard catches it automatically.
A06–A10: The rest of the list
Vulnerable and outdated components, identification and authentication failures, software and data integrity failures, security logging failures, and server-side request forgery (SSRF). Each one represents a category of real attacks happening to real websites today.
Find out which OWASP risks apply to your site.
UebGuard runs a full OWASP Top 10 assessment against your domain in under 10 seconds.
No credit card required. Results in 10 seconds.