Understanding The 2023 OWASP API Top 10 Security Risks

The OWASP Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on improving software security, has been instrumental in identifying critical API-specific security risks through its OWASP Top 10 API Security Risks report. This report, first released in 2019 and updated in 2023, serves as a crucial guide for developers by listing the most significant vulnerabilities associated with APIs, such as Broken Object Level Authorization and Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF). The 2023 update reflects changes in the security landscape, including the merging and renaming of certain risks to better address evolving threats, such as the combination of Excessive Data Exposure and Mass Assignment into Broken Object Property Level Authorization. The methodologies behind the report involve extensive data collection from various sources, ensuring an independent and comprehensive overview of API security challenges. The report emphasizes the importance of proactive security measures over mitigation, advising developers to integrate security early in the project lifecycle, reduce unnecessary data exposure, and utilize tools like StackHawk to test and secure APIs before they reach production.