The OWASP approach to web testing

Who OWASP is and why it is trusted

OWASP (the Open Worldwide Application Security Project) is a non-profit community that produces free, high-quality web-security resources. Because its material is open, peer-reviewed and widely used, referring to it makes your findings credible: "this is an OWASP Top 10 A03 Injection issue" is clearer and more trusted than your own wording alone.

The Top 10: common risks

The OWASP Top 10 is a short list of the most common and serious web-app risks, updated every few years. It is a priority list and an awareness tool, not a full checklist. Names and order change between editions, so always check the current one. Recent editions emphasise broken access control, cryptographic failures and injection near the top.

• Broken access control — users reach things they should not.
• Cryptographic failures — sensitive data poorly protected.
• Injection — input treated as code (SQL, commands).
• Insecure design — the plan itself is unsafe.
• Security misconfiguration — wrong or default settings.
• …and more. Check the current OWASP Top 10 page for the full, up-to-date list.

The WSTG: how to test

The Web Security Testing Guide (WSTG) is the detailed companion: for each area (information gathering, authentication, session management, input validation, access control, and so on) it describes what to test and how. Where the Top 10 says "what matters", the WSTG says "here is how to check it".

Putting them together

A good web test uses the WSTG as the checklist of areas to cover, maps each finding to the relevant Top 10 risk so the client understands its importance, and gives every finding a concrete fix. The next module walks through the specific attacks (SQLi, XSS, CSRF, IDOR, SSRF, auth flaws), each with detection and a fix, which is exactly how OWASP presents them.