OWASP
OWASP (Open Worldwide Application Security Project) is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to improving software security through open, community-driven resources. It is best known for the OWASP Top 10, a regularly updated ranking of the most…
Definition
OWASP (Open Worldwide Application Security Project) is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to improving software security through open, community-driven resources. It is best known for the OWASP Top 10, a regularly updated ranking of the most critical web application security risks, alongside testing guides, cheat sheets, and open-source security tools used industry-wide.
Overview
OWASP was founded in 2001 as a response to the growing need for accessible, vendor-neutral guidance on application security, at a time when most security knowledge was locked behind commercial products or expensive consulting. It operates as a nonprofit with a global network of local chapters, working groups, and open-source projects, all freely available and largely produced by volunteer contributions from security practitioners. Its flagship publication, the OWASP Top 10, is periodically revised (notable editions include 2013, 2017, and 2021) to reflect the current threat landscape, covering categories like Broken Access Control, Cryptographic Failures, Injection, Insecure Design, Security Misconfiguration, and Server-Side Request Forgery. It is widely referenced by developers, auditors, and compliance frameworks (including PCI DSS) as a baseline standard for what application security testing should cover. Beyond the Top 10, OWASP produces the OWASP Testing Guide and Application Security Verification Standard (ASVS) for structured security assessments, the OWASP Cheat Sheet Series with concise defensive coding guidance per vulnerability class, and open-source tools such as ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy) for automated penetration testing and Dependency-Check for identifying vulnerable third-party libraries. OWASP has also expanded beyond traditional web apps with dedicated Top 10 lists for APIs, mobile applications, and — more recently — large language model applications (OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications), addressing risks like prompt injection and insecure output handling as AI systems become common attack surfaces.
Key Features
- OWASP Top 10: the most cited ranking of critical web app security risks
- Application Security Verification Standard (ASVS) for structured audits
- OWASP Cheat Sheet Series with practical, per-vulnerability defensive guidance
- ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy): open-source dynamic application security testing tool
- Dependency-Check and Dependency-Track for software composition analysis
- Specialized Top 10 lists for APIs, mobile apps, and LLM applications
- Global volunteer community and local chapters producing free resources