Application Security Testing: OWASP Top 10, SAST, DAST and SCA Training Course

A01:2025 – Broken Access Control

Access control mechanisms are designed to enforce policies, ensuring users cannot perform actions beyond their intended permissions. Deficiencies in these controls often result in unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or destruction of data, as well as the execution of business functions outside the user's authorized scope.

Practical Aspects

• Practical demonstrations of broken access controls

• Implementing secure access controls and adhering to best practices

A02:2025 – Security Misconfiguration

Security misconfigurations occur when systems, applications, or cloud services are incorrectly set up from a security standpoint, thereby introducing vulnerabilities.

Practical Aspects

• Examination of real-world misconfiguration scenarios

• Strategies to prevent misconfigurations, including the use of configuration management and automation tools

A03:2025 – Software Supply Chain Failures

Software supply chain failures refer to compromises or breakdowns in the processes of building, distributing, or updating software. These are frequently caused by vulnerabilities or malicious alterations in third-party code, tools, or other dependencies upon which the system relies.

A04:2025 – Cryptographic Failures

In general, all data in transit should be encrypted at the transport layer (OSI layer 4). Historical challenges related to CPU performance and private key/certificate management have been largely addressed by modern CPUs featuring instructions for accelerated encryption (e.g., AES support) and simplified certificate management services, such as LetsEncrypt.org and integrated certificate management solutions provided by major cloud vendors.

Alongside securing the transport layer, it is crucial to identify which data requires encryption at rest and which requires additional encryption in transit at the application layer (OSI layer 7).

For instance, sensitive data such as passwords, credit card numbers, health records, personal information, and business secrets demand enhanced protection, particularly when subject to privacy laws like the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or standards like the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Practical Aspects

• In-depth analysis of cryptographic failures, including weak encryption algorithms and improper key management

• The importance of robust cryptographic mechanisms, secure protocols (SSL/TLS), and examples of modern cryptography in web security

A05:2025 – Injection

Injection vulnerabilities are system flaws that allow attackers to insert malicious code or commands (such as SQL or shell code) into input fields, tricking the system into executing them as if they were legitimate system commands. This can have severe consequences.

Practical Aspects

• Comprehensive breakdown of SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection techniques

• Mitigation techniques utilizing prepared statements, parameterized queries, and input escaping

A06:2025 – Insecure Design

Insecure design is a broad category encompassing various weaknesses, characterized by “missing or ineffective control design.”

Insecure design is distinct from the source of other Top Ten risk categories. It is important to differentiate between insecure design and insecure implementation, as they stem from different root causes, occur at different stages of the development process, and require different remediation approaches.

Even with a secure design, implementation defects can lead to exploitable vulnerabilities. Conversely, an insecure design cannot be remedied by perfect implementation, as the necessary security controls were never established to defend against specific attacks in the first place.

A key contributor to insecure design is the absence of business risk profiling during the development of the software or system, leading to an inability to determine the appropriate level of security design required.

Practical Aspects

• Exploration of design flaws that can lead to vulnerabilities, such as improper input validation

• Study of strategies for secure architecture and secure design principles

A07:2025 – Authentication Failures

This vulnerability arises when an attacker successfully deceives a system into recognizing an invalid or incorrect user as legitimate.

Practical Aspects

• Common authentication issues and pitfalls

• Secure authentication strategies, including multi-factor authentication and proper session handling

A08:2025 – Software or Data Integrity Failures

Software and data integrity failures involve code and infrastructure that fails to prevent invalid or untrusted code and data from being treated as trusted and valid.

An example of this is when an application relies on plugins, libraries, or modules from untrusted sources, repositories, or content delivery networks (CDNs).

An insecure CI/CD pipeline that lacks software integrity checks can introduce risks such as unauthorized access, the introduction of insecure or malicious code, or system compromise.

Another instance is a CI/CD pipeline that retrieves code or artifacts from untrusted locations and/or fails to verify them before use (e.g., by checking signatures or similar mechanisms).

Practical Aspects

• Focusing on issues such as untrusted software updates and data tampering

• Implementing safe update mechanisms and data integrity checks

A09:2025 – Security Logging and Alerting Failures

Without adequate logging and monitoring, attacks and breaches go undetected. Furthermore, without effective alerting, responding quickly and effectively to security incidents becomes highly difficult.

Insufficient logging, continuous monitoring, detection, and alerting mechanisms hinder the initiation of active responses when needed.

Practical Aspects

• The importance of logging security-relevant information and monitoring for suspicious activities

• Tools and practices for proper logging and real-time monitoring to detect breaches early

A10:2025 – Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions

Mishandling of exceptional conditions in software occurs when programs fail to prevent, detect, and respond to unusual or unpredictable situations, potentially leading to crashes, unexpected behavior, and vulnerabilities.

This often involves one or more of the following failures:

• The application does not prevent an unusual situation from occurring

• It does not identify the situation as it is happening

• It responds poorly or fails to respond to the situation afterwards

SAST – Static Application Security Testing

1. Understanding static analysis and its optimal timing within the SDLC (shift left)

2. Types of vulnerabilities detectable through SAST, comparing vulnerable code versus secure code

3. Overview of SAST tools (e.g., Semgrep, SonarQube, Checkmarx, depending on the client stack)

4. Practical exercise: Perform a SAST scan on a repository with deliberately introduced vulnerabilities, interpret the results, and triage false positives against real vulnerabilities

DAST – Dynamic Application Security Testing

1. Distinguishing between SAST and DAST, focusing on black-box testing of the running application

2. The DAST scan workflow, including crawling, fuzzing, and response analysis

3. Overview of DAST tools (e.g., OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite)

4. Practical exercise: Execute a DAST scan on a vulnerable test application (e.g., OWASP Juice Shop), identify and validate the findings

SCA – Software Composition Analysis

1. Assessing the risk of third-party dependencies and libraries, including inherited vulnerabilities

2. Understanding SBOM (Software Bill of Materials), its definition, and its significance

3. Overview of SCA tools (e.g., Dependency Check, Snyk, GitHub Dependabot)

4. Practical exercise: Run an SCA scan on a real project, identify vulnerable dependencies, and develop a remediation plan (update, patch, or mitigate)