Understanding OWASP API Top 10 Security Risks

OWASP, a nonprofit founded in 2001 to improve software security through open community resources, publishes the API Security Top 10 as a reference for major risks facing modern APIs. First released in 2019 and substantially revised in 2023 using public reports, industry input, and community feedback, the list reflects the growing complexity of API integrations and threats. Five categories remained unchanged—Broken Object Level Authorization, Broken Authentication, Broken Function Level Authorization, Security Misconfiguration, and Improper Inventory Management—while Excessive Data Exposure and Mass Assignment were consolidated into Broken Object Property Level Authorization, Lack of Resources and Rate Limiting became Unrestricted Resource Consumption, and new emphases included Server-Side Request Forgery, Lack of Protection from Automated Threats, and Unsafe Consumption of APIs. The risks encompass unauthorized access to data or functions, compromised identities, resource exhaustion, abuse of business workflows, internal-network exposure, insecure configurations, unmanaged legacy endpoints, and unvalidated third-party data. Recommended defenses include consistent fine-grained authorization, secure authentication and token management, rate limits, business-abuse detection, validation of user inputs and external data, restrictive outbound requests, configuration reviews, accurate API inventories, and early, continuous security testing within development and CI/CD processes.

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