What constitutes a vulnerability, and what measures can be taken to address it?
What are website vulnerabilities?
Website vulnerabilities are weaknesses or gaps in a website's security infrastructure that can be exploited by malicious actors, jeopardizing its integrity, confidentiality, or availability. These vulnerabilities can take various forms, such as flawed authentication processes, insecure data handling, or susceptibility to external manipulation. To systematically categorize and understand these vulnerabilities, the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) classifies them under specific categories.
What is OWASP?
The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a nonprofit foundation that works to improve the security of software. OWASP's Top 10 is a standard awareness document for developers and web application security. It represents a broad consensus about the most critical security risks to web applications.
What is OWASP Top 10?
The OWASP Top 10 for 2021 includes the following categories of vulnerabilities:
- A01:2021-Broken Access Control: Unauthorized data access, impacting user privacy and data confidentiality.
- A02:2021-Cryptographic Failures: Weak encryption, risking data exposure and confidentiality breaches.
- A03:2021-Injection: Malicious code injection, leading to system compromise and data loss.
- A04:2021-Insecure Design: Poor design choices, causing vulnerabilities and potential breaches.
- A05:2021-Security Misconfiguration: Misconfigured settings, exposing sensitive data and inviting attacks.
- A06:2021-Vulnerable and Outdated Components: Exploitable outdated components, allowing for attacks and breaches.
- A07:2021-Identification and Authentication Failures: Weak identification and authentication, compromising user accounts.
- A08:2021-Software and Data Integrity Failures: Data integrity violations, jeopardizing trust and data accuracy.
- A09:2021-Security Logging and Monitoring Failures: Lack of monitoring, missing threat detection and response capabilities.
- A10:2021-Server-Side Request Forgery: Unauthorized request handling, risking internal resource exposure and abuse.
How does the Project Agora Platform address these vulnerabilities?
The Project Agora Platform conducts weekly passive security scans, to detect and address vulnerabilities on your websites that fall under an OWASP category. These vulnerabilities are categorized into the OWASP Top 10 types, and a severity assessment is provided to reflect their significance.
What is the vulnerability report?
The vulnerability report is a PDF export that outlines the security vulnerabilities identified on your websites. This report is generated after a comprehensive security assessment or audit.
Key components of a vulnerability report include:
1. Report Generic Info:
- Date and time of the last scan
- Domain affected
2. Top-Level Summary:
- Amount of vulnerabilities found at each severity level
- List of vulnerabilities, sorted by High to Low severity
3. Low-Level Vulnerability Attributes (sorted by High to Low severity):
- Severity: High, Medium, Low, Informational
- Description: A description of each identified vulnerability, including its nature, severity, and potential impact
- Evaluation: An evaluation of the risks associated with each vulnerability, often categorized by severity levels (e.g., low, medium, high, critical)
- OWASP Category
- Information per Instance: URL, Method, Attack, Evidence, Other Info
- Solutions: Guidance on how to remediate or mitigate each vulnerability. This may include software patches, configuration changes, or other security measures
Vulnerability reports are crucial for organizations to understand and address potential security risks. They serve as a roadmap for improving overall security posture by guiding the implementation of necessary security measures and patches. Regular vulnerability assessments and the corresponding reports are integral parts of a proactive approach to cybersecurity.
How to export the detailed vulnerability report?
To export the vulnerability report, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the Observe section of the platform, locate the potential vulnerabilities found, and click on the Download icon next to them.
- Choose the websites for which you want to download the Vulnerability report:
- Export website: Click on the Export button next to the relevant site.
- Export all websites: Click on the Export All button.
- Export selected websites: Select the websites by clicking on the box next to each website and click on the Export Selected button.
The PDF exports will be available in the downloaded files section of your browser or computer.
Exporting the full vulnerability scan results in PDF format enables you to share detailed security information with your technical team. This allows for a thorough analysis and prompt resolution of identified vulnerabilities, ensuring your website's security posture is strengthened.