The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) is a non-profit foundation focused on improving the security of software. It’s best known for openly published resources, community-driven projects, and practical guidance that developers and security teams can use without a paywall. Its resources help organizations protect against the most critical security risks facing modern web applications.
For most software developers, the OWASP Top 10 is their first touchpoint with OWASP. But OWASP maintains far more than a single list: cheat sheets, testing guides, and verification standards that help teams build secure software from design through deployment.
It is a widely recognized awareness document that highlights the most critical risks in web application security, from broken access control and cryptographic failures to server side request forgery, data integrity failures, and weaknesses in security logging and monitoring. Designed primarily for developers, it helps teams protect sensitive data and strengthen software security by focusing on the vulnerabilities that most commonly lead to real-world breaches.
The goal is simple: give teams a shared mental model of the most common, most impactful vulnerabilities so they can prioritize secure coding training. Addressing these categories helps reduce recurring security vulnerabilities and improve code resilience.
The OWASP Top 10: 2025 reflects how modern application risk is shifting from isolated coding flaws to the security of the entire software ecosystem. While the 2021 version focused heavily on traditional web vulnerabilities, the 2025 update places stronger emphasis on software supply chain security, secure configuration, and resilience across the software development lifecycle.
Based on current industry data and the version surfaced in AI-driven search results, the OWASP Top 10: 2025 includes:
A01:2025 – Broken Access Control
Remains the most critical risk, covering unauthorized access to data, privilege escalation, and improper enforcement of authorization rules.
A02:2025 – Security Misconfiguration
Highlights insecure default settings, incomplete hardening, misconfigured HTTP headers, and improperly secured cloud services and APIs.
A03:2025 – Software Supply Chain Failures
A new category focused on risks introduced by third-party libraries, build tools, package managers, and CI/CD pipelines.
A04:2025 – Cryptographic Failures
Covers improper protection of sensitive data, weak encryption implementations, poor key management, and insecure data transmission.
A05:2025 – Injection
Includes SQL, NoSQL, OS, and command injection, which still allow attackers to execute unintended queries or commands.
A06:2025 – Insecure Design
Emphasizes architectural weaknesses that cannot be fixed with code changes alone and require secure-by-design development practices.
A07:2025 – Authentication Failures
Focuses on identity management issues such as weak session handling, broken authentication flows, and improper MFA implementation.
A08:2025 – Software or Data Integrity Failures
Covers insecure deserialization, tampered updates, and CI/CD pipeline compromises that impact trust in code and data.
A09:2025 – Security Logging and Alerting Failures
Highlights insufficient visibility into attacks due to poor logging, missing telemetry, or ineffective monitoring processes.
A10:2025 – Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions
A new focus area addressing how applications handle errors, unexpected inputs, and edge cases that can expose sensitive information or create exploitable states.
The OWASP Top 10:2021 categories are:
Each category represents a family of related issues. For example, Broken Access Control covers missing authorization checks, insecure direct object references, and other flaws that let attackers act as users they shouldn’t be. These flaws often allow attackers to gain unauthorized access to restricted resources. Vulnerable and Outdated Components pose risks in libraries, frameworks, and dependencies, all critical in today’s software supply chains.
As OWASP rolls out the Top 10:2025 (currently in Release Candidate status), you can expect some categories and names to evolve, particularly around software supply chain failures and modern misconfigurations, but the 2021 list is still the main benchmark for secure web application development today. New versions aim to address emerging threats affecting cloud-native and containerized applications.
OWASP created the Top 10 because developers needed a practical starting point in a noisy, overwhelming security landscape. Instead of asking teams to absorb hundreds of vulnerabilities, the Top 10 narrows the focus to the most critical categories, such as Broken Access Control, Injection, and Security Misconfiguration. For software developers, that means:
It’s not meant to be a complete catalog of every vulnerability, but it is the baseline for any serious secure coding program. Teams use the Top 10 to implement stronger security controls early in the development process.
For many engineering teams, the OWASP Top 10 is where application security threats become concrete. It sits at the intersection of security best practices, compliance, and the real work of writing secure code. The OWASP Top 10 is important because it does the following:
When you embed OWASP Top 10 concepts into your development process, from design reviews and threat modeling to code review and testing, you get a more predictable, repeatable approach to secure software.
Knowing the OWASP Top 10 is not enough. Developers need hands-on practice applying secure coding principles in real applications. Effective security training should effectively:
That’s where Security Journey focuses: turning OWASP Top 10 from a checklist into a lived experience across your software development lifecycle.
Most organizations use the OWASP Top 10 as a backbone for broader security practices and secure software programs:
The key is to avoid treating OWASP as a static PDF. The most successful teams integrate it into day-to-day workflows, tooling, and conversations.
Security Journey is built to move you beyond checkbox security awareness training into real secure coding education anchored in the OWASP Top 10 and other core standards, and here’s how:
Security Journey also updates its training content monthly, including new lessons tied to emerging risks and the evolving OWASP Top 10 (such as the 2025 update), so your teams stay aligned with the latest application security threats and security practices.
If you want your developers to move beyond basic security awareness and actually build, break, and fix real applications, Security Journey can help. Our hands-on OWASP Top 10 training, role-based learning paths, and data-driven assessments give teams the confidence to ship secure software at scale.