The OWASP Top 10 2025:
A Shifting Landscape of Web Application Security

January 12, 2026

The release of a new OWASP Top 10 is always a significant event in the cybersecurity world. These updates provide a critical snapshot of the most prevalent and impactful security risks to web applications and more, guiding developers, security professionals, and organizations in their efforts to build and maintain secure software and applications.

The 2025 list, while retaining some familiar entries, introduces shifts as well, reflecting the evolving threat landscape and the increasing sophistication of attackers. This in-depth blog post will dissect the current OWASP Top 10 2025, compare it to its 2021 predecessor, delve into the research backing these changes, and conclude with emerging trends and future predictions.

A Look Back: The OWASP Top 10 2021

Before we dive into the present, let’s briefly revisit the OWASP Top 10 2021. This list served as a crucial benchmark for the past few years, highlighting risks such as:

• A01:2021 – Broken Access Control: Still a perennial favorite for attackers, focusing on improper enforcement of access rights.
• A02:2021 – Cryptographic Failures: Emphasizing the mishandling of cryptographic operations.
• A03:2021 – Injection: The classic vulnerability, covering various forms of injection attacks like SQLi, NoSQLi, and command injection.
• A04:2021 – Insecure Design: A new category in 2021, shifting focus left to design flaws.
• A05:2021 – Security Misconfiguration: Pertaining to improperly configured security settings.
• A06:2021 – Vulnerable and Outdated Components: Highlighting the risks of using software with known vulnerabilities.
• A07:2021 – Identification and Authentication Failures: Issues related to user identity verification.
• A08:2021 – Software and Data Integrity Failures: Focusing on risks related to code and data integrity.
• A09:2021 – Security Logging and Monitoring Failures: The absence or ineffectiveness of logging and monitoring.
• A10:2021 – Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF): A specific attack vector that gained prominence.

The OWASP Top 10 2025: New Challenges, Renewed Focus

The OWASP Top 10 2025 introduces several compelling changes, driven by extensive data analysis, community feedback, and a clear understanding of the evolving threat landscape. Here’s a breakdown of the 2025 list, highlighting key changes and the rationale behind them:

A01:2025 – Broken Access Control (Still #1)

Rationale: Unsurprisingly, Broken Access Control retains its top spot. This vulnerability continues to be a leading cause of data breaches, demonstrating how fundamental and pervasive authorization issues remain. Research consistently shows that attackers frequently exploit flaws in how applications enforce user permissions, allowing them to access unauthorized functions or data. This item also now includes A10:2021 – Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) now that its distinct profile has been absorbed into the broader scope of Access Control, as SSRF fundamentally involves a failure to enforce the application's intended access boundaries to resources.

Comparison to 2021: Remains at A01, reinforcing its critical importance.

External Research/Sources: Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) consistently lists access control issues as a top contributor to breaches. For example, the 2023 DBIR indicated that web application attacks, often leveraging broken access control, are a common vector for data theft. Source: Verizon DBIR

A02:2025 – Security Misconfiguration (Up 3 spots from A05)

Rationale: This broad category continues to cover a multitude of sins: default credentials, unpatched servers, exposed cloud storage, verbose error messages, and more. With the rapid adoption of cloud-native architectures and containerization, misconfigurations have become even easier to introduce and harder to detect at scale.

Comparison to 2021: A05:2021 – Security Misconfiguration. Its rise from A05 to A02 reflects the growing challenge of properly securing complex environments. Multi-cloud, multi-SaaS, Zero Trust, remote work, shadow IT and more contribute to an even broader and nuanced attack surface. In all of these, the configuration is the boundary.

External Research/Sources: Cloud security reports from organizations like Wiz and Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 frequently highlight cloud misconfigurations as a primary attack vector. Source: Wiz Cloud Security Report

A03:2025 – Software Supply Chain Failures (Up 3 spots from A06)

Rationale: This category takes on increased prominence and possibly a broader scope to explicitly address "Software Supply Chain Risks." The SolarWinds attack and numerous other incidents have unequivocally demonstrated the profound impact of vulnerabilities in third-party libraries, open-source components, and upstream dependencies.

Comparison to 2021: A06:2021 – Vulnerable and Outdated Components. The renaming of this clearly refocuses how interconnected everything is, underscoring that the risk extends beyond individual components to the entire software stack.

Research/Sources: Reports from institutions like Snyk and Sonatype detail the prevalence of vulnerabilities in open-source components and the growing concern over software supply chain attacks. Source: Snyk Open Source Security Report

A04:2025 – Cryptographic Failures (Down 2 spots from A02)

Rationale: While still focused on the misuse or absence of encryption, this category is broadened to explicitly include "Data Exposure." This emphasizes the downstream impact of cryptographic failures – unencrypted sensitive data becoming vulnerable. The increasing regulatory pressure around data privacy (GDPR, CCPA) makes this a more salient concern.

Comparison to 2021: A02:2021 – Cryptographic Failures. The category has only broadened and still moved down 2 spots. Standards like TLS and services like LetsEncrypt are much easier to implement at this point which has contributed to this drop, a trend that hopefully continues.

External Research/Sources: Read through the worst breaches of 2025 from EFF and nearly every one would have been lessened with better cryptographic configuration, see also why Data Exposure is now included in this. Source: EFF: The Breachies 2025

A05:2025 – Injection (Down 2 spots from A03)

Rationale: Injection vulnerabilities remain a foundational threat. The 2025 list continues to highlight the dangers of untrusted input being processed without proper sanitization, leading to SQL injection, NoSQL injection, OS command injection, and more. The refinement often comes in the sub-categories or guidance, reflecting new injection vectors emerging in modern frameworks.

Comparison to 2021: A03:2021 – Injection. Its persistence at a high rank underscores its enduring threat. Similar to Cryptographic Failures, using standard frameworks has helped with the low hanging fruit.

Research/Sources: The CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses frequently features various injection types at the top, indicating their widespread impact. Source: CWE Top 25

A06:2025 – Insecure Design (Down 2 spots from A04)

Rationale: This category, introduced in 2021, has solidified its position and possibly seen an elevation in guidance. It stresses that security must be considered from the initial design phase, not as an afterthought. This includes threat modeling, secure architecture patterns, and ensuring security requirements are baked into the software development lifecycle (SDLC). The rise of microservices and complex distributed systems makes secure design even more critical.

Comparison to 2021: A04:2021 – Insecure Design. Its continued high ranking shows its growing recognition as a root cause of many vulnerabilities.

Research/Sources: Shift left has been a tenet for decades in design, engineering and finally now in security design and testing. The difficulty continues to be in the details even as blog after blog and paper after paper demonstrate the need. Source: The Art of Software Testing (1979)

A07:2025 – Identification and Authentication Failures (Still A07)

Rationale: This category remains crucial, addressing weak or improperly implemented authentication mechanisms. Expect increased emphasis on multi-factor authentication (MFA) enforcement, secure session management, and resistance to credential stuffing and brute-force attacks. The rise of phishing-resistant authentication methods (like FIDO2) will also likely play a role in guidance.

Comparison to 2021: A07:2021 – Identification and Authentication Failures. The ongoing nature of these issues keeps it on the list despite the increased pervasiveness of biometric authentication.

Research/Sources: Microsoft's Digital Defense Report consistently highlights identity-based attacks as a primary threat, underscoring the importance of robust authentication. Source: Microsoft Digital Defense Report

A08:2025 – Software or Data Integrity Failures (Still A08)

Rationale: This category gets a new definition and name while staying at A08 and addresses vulnerabilities related to the integrity of software updates, critical data, and Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. Attacks focus on modifying code, configuration, or data to create an exploitable weakness, such as using untrusted processes to retrieve, store, or process sensitive information. Its inclusion as a major category highlights the necessity of validating data and code integrity throughout the entire software lifecycle.

Comparison to 2021: Aligns with the previous A08:2021 – Software and Data Integrity Failures. The updated name and definition reinforce the continued focus on validating code and data integrity across the entire development lifecycle.

Research/Sources: Reports from industry institutions frequently detail leaked credentials in supply chain compromises and integrity attacks, demonstrating its continued threat against modern development environments. Source: CodeCov Compromise

A09:2025 – Security Logging, Monitoring, and Alerting Failures (Still A09)

Rationale: This category's importance has only grown. Effective logging, real-time monitoring, and timely alerting are absolutely critical for detecting, investigating, and responding to security incidents. Without them, even the most robust defenses can be bypassed silently. The 2025 list likely emphasizes automation and integration with SIEM/SOAR platforms.

Comparison to 2021: A09:2021 – Security Logging and Monitoring Failures. The addition of "Alerting" emphasizes the full cycle of detection and response.

Research/Sources: Read through nearly any breach report and marvel at the number of days from first compromise to detection, with numbers hovering around 200 days. Source: IBM

A10:2025 – API and Microservice Security Failures (A Brand New Entry!)

Rationale: This is arguably the most significant new entry, reflecting the ubiquitous shift towards API-driven architectures and microservices. Modern applications are increasingly reliant on APIs for communication between services, mobile frontends, and third-party integrations. These APIs often expose sensitive data and critical business logic, and traditional web application firewalls (WAFs) are often insufficient to protect them. This category will cover issues like broken object-level authorization, excessive data exposure, improper asset management for APIs, and unauthenticated endpoints.

Comparison to 2021: Brand new, but elements might have been implicitly covered in other categories. Its explicit inclusion highlights its growing and distinct risk profile.

Research/Sources: Industry reports from API security vendors like Salt Security and Noname Security consistently highlight the rising number of API attacks and the unique vulnerabilities inherent in API architectures. Source: Salt Security API Threat Report

Key Comparisons and Takeaways (2021 vs. 2025)

The evolution from 2021 to 2025 showcases several critical shifts:

• API-First Security: The explicit addition of "API and Microservice Security Failures" is the most telling sign of the times. As applications become more distributed and reliant on APIs, a dedicated focus on these attack surfaces is imperative.
• Supply Chain Dominance: The stronger emphasis on "Vulnerable and Outdated Components" with an explicit link to "Supply Chain Risks" reflects a hard-won lesson from recent, high-profile breaches.
• Proactive vs. Reactive: While still addressing vulnerabilities, there's an increased underlying theme of proactive security: secure design, robust logging/monitoring/alerting, and strong authentication are all about preventing and quickly detecting issues, rather than just patching them after the fact.
• Consolidation and Refinement: Some categories have been refined or broadened (e.g., Cryptographic Failures including Data Exposure), indicating a maturation in how OWASP views and categorizes these risks.

Emerging Trends and Future Predictions

Looking ahead, several trends will undoubtedly shape the OWASP Top 10 beyond 2025:

1. AI-Driven Attacks & Defenses: As AI and Machine Learning become more integrated into applications, we'll see both AI-powered attacks (e.g., sophisticated phishing, automated exploit generation) and AI-powered defenses (e.g., anomaly detection, intelligent WAFs). Expect categories related to AI/ML model security, data poisoning, and adversarial machine learning to emerge.
2. Increased Focus on Cloud-Native Security: While touched upon by "Security Misconfiguration" and "API and Microservice Security Failures," the complexities of Kubernetes, serverless functions, and other cloud-native technologies will likely warrant even more granular attention. "Cloud Workload Protection Failures" or similar could become a dedicated category.
3. Rise of "Security-by-Design" Culture: The consistent high ranking of "Insecure Design" signals a continuing push for security to be integrated from the very beginning of the SDLC. Expect more guidance on threat modeling frameworks, secure coding practices, and developer education.
4. Identity Fabric Security: Beyond just authentication, the entire "identity fabric" – encompassing decentralized identities, advanced authorization policies, and identity proofing – will become a more complex and critical attack surface.
5. Data Privacy by Default: With global privacy regulations tightening, expect the OWASP Top 10 to implicitly or explicitly tie vulnerabilities to their data privacy implications even more strongly.
6. Quantum Computing Preparedness: While not an immediate threat, the long-term implications of quantum computing on current cryptographic algorithms will eventually necessitate new categories or substantial updates to "Cryptographic Failures."

Conclusion

The OWASP Top 10 2025 is a testament to the dynamic nature of cybersecurity. It's not just a list of vulnerabilities; it's a living document that reflects the collective knowledge and experience of the security community. By understanding these risks, developers and organizations can better fortify their web applications against the threats of today and prepare for the challenges of tomorrow. Stay vigilant, stay informed, and keep building securely.

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