

Attackers who are able to access and steal this information can use it as part of wider attacks or sell it to third parties. Sensitive data, like credit card information, medical details, Social Security numbers, and user passwords, can be exposed if a web application does not protect it effectively. Sensitive data exposure or data leakage is one of the most common forms of cyberattack. Other tactics include checking for weak passwords, ensuring users protect their accounts with strong, unique passwords, and using secure session managers. These vulnerabilities can also be prevented by ensuring developers apply best practices to website security and are given an appropriate period of time to properly test codes before applications are put into production. These vulnerabilities are typically caused by insecure software, which is often a result of inexperienced developers writing them, a lack of security testing, and rushed software releases.īroken authentication vulnerabilities can be mitigated by deploying MFA methods, which offer greater certainty that a user is who they claim to be and prevent automated and brute-force attacks. Expose session IDs in the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), do not rotate session IDs, and do not properly invalidate session IDs and authentication tokens after a period of inactivity.Are missing or use ineffective multi-factor authentication (MFA).



Employ ineffective user credential and lost password processes.Permit attacks like credential stuffing.The OWASP Top 10 provides a list of broken authentication vulnerabilities, which include web applications that: This includes bad session management, which can be exploited by attackers using brute-force techniques to guess or confirm user accounts and login credentials. Websites commonly suffer broken authentication, which typically occurs as a result of issues in the application’s authentication mechanism. Authentication vulnerabilities can enable attackers to gain access to user accounts, including admin accounts that they could use to compromise and take full control of corporate systems.
