30 Application Security Vulnerabilities & 6 Ways to Mitigate Them

What Are Application Security Vulnerabilities? 

Application security vulnerabilities refer to weaknesses or flaws in a software system that can be exploited by attackers to gain unauthorized access, disrupt operations, or steal sensitive data. These vulnerabilities often arise from coding errors, lack of proper security measures, or misconfigurations. They can affect any part of the application, including the user interface, back-end services, and database operations.

Understanding these vulnerabilities is crucial for protecting applications from potential threats. Developers must stay informed about common vulnerabilities and maintain an updated knowledge base to address these issues. By implementing security measures, organizations can mitigate risks and protect their applications from becoming breach points.

The Impact of Application Security Vulnerabilities 

Application security vulnerabilities can have far-reaching consequences, affecting organizations, users, and critical infrastructure. One of the most immediate impacts is financial loss, as data breaches and attacks often lead to regulatory fines, legal costs, and revenue losses due to service downtime. Additionally, organizations may face reputational damage, losing customer trust and credibility in the marketplace.

On a broader scale, vulnerabilities can compromise user privacy and safety. Attackers exploiting these flaws may steal sensitive information, such as personal data or payment credentials, leading to identity theft or fraud. In industries like healthcare or energy, compromised systems can disrupt essential services.

Vulnerabilities in one application can sometimes serve as entry points for attackers to infiltrate an entire network, escalating the severity of the attack. For these reasons, addressing application security vulnerabilities presents both a technical challenge and a business and operational priority.

What Is the OWASP Top 10?

The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) is a nonprofit community focused on improving software security. One of its most recognized contributions is the OWASP Top 10—a regularly updated list of the most critical security risks. It serves as a practical awareness document for developers, architects, and security professionals, helping them prioritize defenses against the most common and impactful vulnerabilities.

OWASP publishes multiple “Top 10” lists for different domains of software security:

• Web Applications (2021): Focuses on common vulnerabilities in traditional web applications, such as broken access control and injection flaws.
  
  
• APIs (2023): Highlights risks specific to APIs, including authorization issues, unsafe integrations, and resource abuse.
  
  
• Mobile (2024): Targets threats in mobile apps, such as insecure storage, weak authentication, and binary tampering.
  
  
• Kubernetes (2022): Covers misconfigurations and security gaps in Kubernetes environments, including RBAC, network controls, and supply chain risks.
  
  
• LLMs (2025): Identifies emerging threats in large language model (LLM) and AI systems, like prompt injection, model poisoning, and excessive autonomy. 

In this article, we will focus on the Application, API, and LLM Top 10 lists.

OWASP Top 10 Application Security Vulnerabilities 

The OWASP Top 10 for web applications (last updated in 2021) provides a ranked list of the most widespread and severe security issues. These categories represent patterns of vulnerabilities that attackers most often exploit.

Top 10 Application Risks (2021):

• A01 – Broken Access Control: Weak or missing restrictions on what users can do in an application allow attackers to bypass authorization rules, access sensitive resources, or perform actions beyond their intended role.
  
  
• A02 – Cryptographic Failures: Misuse of encryption or poor protection of sensitive data exposes information such as passwords, credit cards, or personal records to theft, tampering, or unauthorized disclosure.
  
  
• A03 – Injection: Unvalidated input leading to malicious queries or commands can let attackers manipulate databases, execute system calls, or interfere with application logic.
  
  
• A04 – Insecure Design: Architectural flaws and missing security controls often result in insecure workflows, unprotected data flows, or designs that cannot resist common attack patterns.
  
  
• A05 – Security Misconfiguration: Incorrect or unsafe system configurations leave applications open to attacks by exposing default accounts, unnecessary services, or overly permissive settings.
  
  
• A06 – Vulnerable and Outdated Components: Use of software with known flaws, such as outdated libraries or frameworks, allows attackers to exploit public vulnerabilities to compromise applications.
  
  
• A07 – Identification and Authentication Failures: Weak authentication or session handling lets attackers impersonate users, steal accounts, or escalate privileges by exploiting insecure login mechanisms.
  
  
• A08 – Software and Data Integrity Failures: Lack of integrity checks for code, data, or updates allows attackers to tamper with software supply chains, inject malicious code, or alter trusted resources.
  
  
• A09 – Security Logging and Monitoring Failures: Insufficient detection and response capabilities prevent organizations from identifying attacks, investigating incidents, or stopping breaches in time

• A10 – Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF): Servers making unintended external or internal requests let attackers pivot into internal networks, access sensitive services, or exfiltrate protected data.

The OWASP Top 10 for API 

The OWASP API Security Top 10 identifies the most critical security risks unique to APIs. While some categories overlap with the general OWASP Top 10, API vulnerabilities often involve different attack patterns and require specialized mitigation strategies. This list helps organizations prioritize their API security efforts and address common weaknesses before they are exploited.

Top 10 API Security Risks (2023):

• API1:2023 – Broken Object Level Authorization: Occurs when APIs fail to enforce access control at the object level, allowing attackers to manipulate object IDs to access or modify other users’ data.
  
  
• API2:2023 – Broken Authentication: Results from flawed authentication mechanisms, enabling attackers to compromise tokens or impersonate users by exploiting implementation weaknesses.
  
  
• API3:2023 – Broken Object Property Level Authorization: Arises when APIs lack proper checks at the property level, leading to unauthorized viewing or modification of sensitive object fields.
  
  
• API4:2023 – Unrestricted Resource Consumption: Happens when APIs allow unlimited or costly requests, potentially causing Denial of Service or increasing operational costs through resource exhaustion.
  
  
• API5:2023 – Broken Function Level Authorization: Stems from weak separation of administrative and regular functions, letting attackers perform unauthorized operations or access restricted features.
  
  
• API6:2023 – Unrestricted Access to Sensitive Business Flows: Involves exposing critical business processes without safeguards against excessive or automated use, leading to abuse without needing code-level exploits.
  
  
• API7:2023 – Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF): Occurs when an API fetches remote resources without validating user-supplied URIs, allowing crafted requests to reach unintended destinations.
  
  
• API8:2023 – Security Misconfiguration: Results from overlooked or insecure API configurations, which may leave debug endpoints, default settings, or unnecessary permissions exposed.
  
  
• API9:2023 – Improper Inventory Management: Happens when organizations lack accurate documentation or tracking of API hosts and versions, leading to exposure of outdated or vulnerable endpoints.
  
  
• API10:2023 – Unsafe Consumption of APIs: Occurs when developers trust third-party API data without proper validation, letting attackers target integrated services to compromise the system.

The OWASP Top 10 for LLMs 

The OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Models (LLMs) highlights the most critical security risks in AI-powered applications. These vulnerabilities are unique to the way LLMs process, generate, and act on information, and they often require specialized safeguards beyond traditional application security. This list helps developers, security teams, and organizations prioritize defenses to protect against real-world threats.

Top 10 LLM Security Risks (2025):

• LLM01:2025 – Prompt Injection: Manipulation of an LLM’s input to alter behavior, bypass safeguards, or execute unauthorized actions. Can be direct or embedded in external content.
  
  
• LLM02:2025 – Sensitive Information Disclosure: Exposure of personal, proprietary, or confidential data through model outputs or training data, often due to poor sanitization or access controls.
  
  
• LLM03:2025 – Supply Chain: Risks from vulnerable or tampered models, datasets, or third-party components used during training, fine-tuning, or deployment.
  
  
• LLM04:2025 – Data and Model Poisoning: Insertion of malicious or biased data during training or fine-tuning to degrade performance, introduce backdoors, or influence outputs.
  
  
• LLM05:2025 – Improper Output Handling: Failing to validate or sanitize model outputs before passing them to downstream systems, leading to injection, privilege escalation, or code execution.
  
  
• LLM06:2025 – Excessive Agency: Granting LLMs too much autonomy, functionality, or permissions in connected systems, enabling unintended or harmful actions.
  
  
• LLM07:2025 – System Prompt Leakage: Exposure of system instructions that may reveal sensitive logic, credentials, or access rules, enabling attackers to bypass protections.
  
  
• LLM08:2025 – Vector and Embedding Weaknesses: Insecure handling of embeddings or vector stores in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), enabling data leakage, poisoning, or inversion attacks.
  
  
• LLM09:2025 – Misinformation: Generation of factually incorrect, misleading, or biased outputs, often amplified by user overreliance on AI-generated content.
  
  
• LLM10:2025 – Unbounded Consumption: Allowing excessive or uncontrolled use of LLM resources, leading to denial-of-service, high costs, or model extraction attempts.

5 Best Practices for Mitigating Application Security Vulnerabilities

Here are some of the ways that organizations can improve protection against security vulnerabilities in their applications.

1. Implement Strong Authentication and Access Controls

Authentication and access controls are crucial for protecting applications from unauthorized access and exploitation. This involves enforcing robust password policies, utilizing multi-factor authentication (MFA), and applying the principle of least privilege to user roles and permissions. Regular audits and monitoring access logs help ensure compliance and detect breaches.

By integrating identity and access management (IAM) solutions, organizations can automate and simplify the enforcement of access controls. Continuous evaluation of access patterns allows for adjustments to access permissions, minimizing the risk of insider threats and data leaks. Ensuring that users can only access necessary resources reduces the attack surface.

2. Regularly Update and Patch Systems

Regular updates and patching of systems are vital to protecting applications against known vulnerabilities. Attackers often exploit unpatched systems, leading to data breaches and system compromises. Keeping software, libraries, and operating systems up to date closes security gaps and reduces the risk of exploitation.

Organizations should establish a patch management strategy, prioritizing critical updates and automating the patching process where possible. This helps maintain an up-to-date security posture, addressing vulnerabilities as they are discovered. Regularly reviewing and applying security patches ensures continuous protection against emerging threats.

3. Validate and Sanitize User Inputs

Validating and sanitizing user inputs prevents injection attacks and unauthorized data access within applications. Proper input validation ensures that only expected data types and formats are processed, reducing the risk of malicious input. Sanitization further cleans potentially harmful characters from user inputs, mitigating the risk of code execution or data corruption.

Developers should use input validation and sanitization frameworks tailored to their programming languages and environments. By incorporating these practices throughout application code, organizations reduce the likelihood of input-based vulnerabilities. Regular code reviews and static analysis help reinforce these techniques, providing a layered defense.

4. Encrypt Sensitive Data

Encrypting sensitive data aids in protecting information privacy and integrity. Data encryption secures sensitive information, both at rest and in transit, from unauthorized access and tampering. Using strong encryption algorithms and key management practices ensures the effectiveness of encryption measures.

Organizations should implement end-to-end encryption for all sensitive data processed by their applications, enforcing encryption standards that meet industry requirements. Regularly reviewing encryption practices and updating cryptographic protocols guard against evolving threats. By securing all sensitive data, companies can comply with data protection regulations.

5. Conduct Regular Security Assessments and Penetration Testing

Regular security assessments and penetration testing are critical for identifying potential vulnerabilities in applications and infrastructure. These assessments help organizations uncover weaknesses that standard testing might miss, providing a comprehensive view of security posture. Penetration testing simulates attacks by skilled testers to evaluate security controls.

Organizations should plan and conduct regular security assessments and penetration tests, incorporating insights into their security strategies. The findings from these tests guide improvements in security architecture and policy. By encouraging proactive vulnerability discovery and remediation, companies can maintain defenses against sophisticated threats.

6. Utilize Cloud Application Detection and Response (CADR)

Cloud application detection and response (CADR) is a proactive approach to monitoring, detecting, and responding to security threats targeting applications. CADR solutions use real-time threat detection, analytics, and automated response mechanisms to identify suspicious activities, such as anomalous user behavior or exploitation attempts, within application environments.

CADR tools offer enhanced visibility into application-layer threats and integrate with security solutions like SIEM systems to provide centralized monitoring and incident response capabilities. Organizations should configure ACDR to monitor critical application components, such as APIs, containers, hosts, and cloud resources. Automated alerts and preconfigured response playbooks enable rapid containment of incidents.

Mitigating Application Security Vulnerabilities with Oligo

Oligo mitigates application security vulnerabiliities by detecting and blocking real threats in real time, focusing only on vulnerabilities that are truly exploitable in production. Through deep visibility into code behavior at runtime, Oligo identifies malicious activity the moment it begins—allowing teams to stop attacks before they cause harm, without slowing down applications.

Learn more about our approach.