Top 10 2007

Welcome to the Top 10 2007 Public Comments / Review

Please note: This document is not to be used or referenced until after its release.

FINAL REVIEW STATUS
This document is in the final stages of review. In this stage this page is being updated frequently by Neil Smithline. Any changes you make will likely be overwritten by me. You can update the Word and PDF documents with impunity. Should you have any concerns, please contact me at "owasp-topten" in the domain of "smithline.net" or use the discussion page. Everything from the beginning of this page through the heading "Final Document Below" will be deleted when we go live.

Review
We are opening review of the Top 10 2007 until May 13, 2007. Please review the document and provide feedback to the owasp-topten@lists.owasp.org mail list. If you cannot make public submissions or feedback but still wish to make your voice heard, please mail vanderaj (at) owasp.org

Introduction
Welcome to the OWASP Top 10 2007! This totally re-written edition lists the most serious web application vulnerabilities, discusses how to protect against them, and provides links to more information.

Aim
The primary aim of the OWASP Top 10 is to educate developers, designers, architects and organizations about the consequences of the most common web application security vulnerabilities. The Top 10 provides basic methods to protect against these vulnerabilities – a great start to your secure coding security program. Security is not a one-time event. It is insufficient to secure your code just once. By 2008, this Top 10 will have changed, and without changing a line of your application’s code, you may be vulnerable. Please review the advice in [#Where to go from here|Where to go from here]for more information. A secure coding initiative must deal with all stages of a program’s lifecycle. Secure web applications are only possible when a secure SDLC is used. Secure programs are secure by design, during development, and by default. There are at least 300 issues that affect the overall security of a web application. These 300+ issues are detailed in the|OWASP Guide, which is essential reading for anyone developing web applications today. This document is first and foremost an education piece, not a standard. Please do not adopt this document as a policy or standard without [mailto:owasp@owasp.org|talking to us]first! If you need a secure coding policy or standard, OWASP has secure coding policies and standards projects in progress. Please consider joining or financially assisting with these efforts.

Acknowledgements
We thank MITRE for making Vulnerability Type Distribution in CVE data freely available for use. The OWASP Top Ten project is led and sponsored by |Aspect Security. We’d also like to thank our reviewers: *Raoul Endres for help in getting the Top 10 going again and with his valuable comments. *Jeremiah Grossman (WhiteHat Security) for peer reviewing and contributing information about the success (or otherwise) of automated means of detection. *Sylvan von Stuppe for an exemplary peer review. *Steve M. Christey (MITRE) for an extensive peer review and adding the MITRE CWE data. *Neil Smithline (BEA Systems) for e-mailed comments and converting the document from Word to MediaWiki. *Andre Gironda for e-mailed comments.

Downloadable Versions
You can download the Top 10 2007 here:

Release Candidate 2, 200705091808


 * Word (520 kb) - Use tracking changes and comments and send back


 * PDF (980 kb) - Useful for reading the document as is
 * Looking for a version in another language? We could use your help translating. Contact ???