Web Application Security Audit by OWASP Top 10

Imagine your web application processing payments, and an attacker gains access to the customer database through an SQL injection. The consequences — data breach, reputational loss, multimillion-dollar fines. An OWASP Top 10 security audit is your shield. We identify vulnerabilities before hackers find them. Our engineers are certified (CEH, OSWE) with over 50 projects experience. Confidentiality and completeness are guaranteed. The audit includes automated scanning and manual code review. Manual analysis is 3 times better than automated scanning at finding critical flaws. Fixing a vulnerability in production costs 10x more than during development. A typical audit starts at $500 and can prevent damages of up to $50,000. On average, every ruble invested in auditing saves 5 rubles in attack mitigation. We check not only OWASP Top 10 but also business logic, containers, CI/CD. A full assessment gives confidence in production security and protects against reputational risks. Our reports contain concrete PoCs and recommendations.

What vulnerabilities do we check?

How do we conduct the audit?

Our process consists of five steps designed for thorough coverage.

Step 1: Reconnaissance and Mapping (3–5 days)

Inventory of application entry points. We collect endpoint maps, technology stack, and versions. We use Burp Suite for traffic interception.

# Attack surface mapping
nmap -sV -sC -p- target.example.com
ffuf -w /usr/share/wordlists/dirb/big.txt -u https://target.example.com/FUZZ -mc 200,301,302,403
katana -u https://target.example.com -jc -d 3
whatweb https://target.example.com

Step 2: Automated Scanning (1–2 days)

# Active scanning
zap-cli quick-scan --self-contained --start-options '-config api.disablekey=true' https://target.example.com
nikto -h https://target.example.com -ssl -output report.html
nuclei -u https://target.example.com -t cves/ -t misconfigurations/ -severity critical,high,medium
semgrep --config=p/owasp-top-ten ./src

Step 3: Manual Analysis (5–10 days)

We manually test each scenario: negative amounts, coupon brute-force, verification bypass. This gives a full picture of security.

Step 4: Reporting (1–2 days)

Executive summary for management, technical report with PoC, risk matrix.

Step 5: Retesting (2–3 days)

Verification of fixes upon request.

Audit Timeline

Detailed testing scenarios

We go beyond automated scanning to cover critical areas.

Authentication and Authorization Check

We test IDOR, privilege escalation, and JWT vulnerabilities.

# IDOR and JWT
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer {token}" https://target.com/api/users/{id}/profile
python jwt_tool.py -t <token> -T
hashcat -a 0 -m 16500 jwt.txt wordlist.txt

Injections and Client-Side Attacks (3–4 days)

# SQLmap and XSS
sqlmap -u "https://target.com/search?q=test" --level=5 --risk=3 --dbs --batch
dalfox url "https://target.com/search?q=test" --output xss_report.txt

SSRF checks are done manually: we substitute links to internal resources (AWS metadata, Redis, file://).

Configuration Analysis (1–2 days)

# TLS, headers, dependencies, and secrets
testssl.sh --full https://target.example.com
sslyze --regular target.example.com
npm audit --audit-level=moderate
composer audit
gitleaks detect --source . --report-format json

Importance of Business Logic Analysis

Automation does not find payment bypass, coupon manipulation, or race conditions. We manually test each scenario: negative amounts, coupon brute-force, verification bypass. For example, in an e-commerce store we found that the cart total could be modified via JSON request manipulation. This would allow an attacker to obtain goods at zero price. As noted in the OWASP official documentation, manual testing finds up to 40% more vulnerabilities than automated scanning, and for business logic this factor can reach 5x.

What does the report include?

• Executive Summary for management (no technical details)
• Technical section with PoC for each vulnerability
• Risk matrix (Severity × Likelihood)
• Remediation roadmap with priorities
• OWASP Top 10 checklist (status of each item)

Deliverables

• Detailed security audit report (PDF, internal wiki) with executive and technical sections
• Access to secure portal for report viewing and status tracking
• 30-day email support for questions on findings
• Optional retesting after fixes (additional cost)

We have conducted over 50 assessments for SaaS products. Request a consultation — we'll assess your project and propose an optimal plan. Learn how to protect your web application from modern threats: the OWASP official website.

Web Application Security: HTTPS, CSP, XSS, CSRF, WAF, DDoS Protection

A website breach rarely looks like in movies. More often it's: a bot finds an unprotected /admin/export endpoint, downloads the customer database, and closes the connection. Or: through an outdated WordPress plugin, a web shell is uploaded, and the server starts sending spam. Or quieter: an XSS in a comment field allows stealing admin session cookies, unnoticed for months. We have analyzed dozens of such cases — each vulnerability could have been fixed at the development or audit stage.

Web application security is not a single setting. It's layers of protection, each closing a separate class of attacks. Order an audit — we'll assess the project and deliver a turnkey plan within 2–4 weeks.

How do we ensure comprehensive web application security?

HTTPS and Proper TLS Configuration

HTTPS is the minimum mandatory level. But having an SSL certificate and having a properly configured TLS are different things.

In Nginx/Apache configuration we check:

• Protocols: only TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3, SSLv3 and TLS 1.0/1.1 are disabled
• Cipher suites: prefer ECDHE (Forward Secrecy), remove NULL, RC4, DES, 3DES
• HSTS (Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload) — browser will never make insecure requests
• OCSP Stapling — speeds up certificate revocation check
• Redirect 301 from HTTP to HTTPS — both in server config and code (double redirect causes SEO weight loss)

Check: SSL Labs (ssllabs.com/ssltest) should show A or A+. If B, the configuration is weak.

Let's Encrypt + Certbot for production is standard. Automatic renewal via certbot renew in cron. Wildcard certificates for subdomains via DNS-01 challenge.

Content Security Policy: The Most Powerful and Complex Protection

CSP is an HTTP header that tells the browser which sources are allowed to load resources. A properly configured CSP completely blocks most XSS attacks, even if the vulnerability exists in the code.

The problem: breaking the site with an incorrect CSP is easy. default-src 'none' — and fonts, images, JS stop working. So we start with Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only — CSP logs violations but does not block anything. We monitor reports for 2–4 weeks, refine the policy, then switch to enforcement mode.

Example of a real policy for a site with Google Analytics, Google Fonts, and Stripe:

Content-Security-Policy:
  default-src 'self';
  script-src 'self' https://www.googletagmanager.com https://js.stripe.com 'nonce-{random}';
  style-src 'self' https://fonts.googleapis.com 'unsafe-inline';
  font-src 'self' https://fonts.gstatic.com;
  frame-src https://js.stripe.com;
  img-src 'self' data: https://www.google-analytics.com;
  connect-src 'self' https://api.stripe.com https://www.google-analytics.com;
  report-uri /csp-report;

nonce — a random string generated server-side per request. Inline scripts with the correct nonce are allowed; without nonce, they are blocked. This completely breaks XSS via <script>alert(1)</script>.

'unsafe-inline' in style-src is a compromise for inline styles. It's better to remove it by moving all styles to CSS files, but that requires refactoring.

Why XSS Remains the Most Common Vulnerability?

XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) — injection of JS code through user input. According to OWASP, XSS is in the top 3 web application vulnerabilities. Three types:

Protection: never insert user input into HTML without escaping. In PHP — htmlspecialchars() with ENT_QUOTES. In Laravel Blade templates — {{ $var }} is safe, {!! $var !!} is dangerous. In React — {variable} is safe, dangerouslySetInnerHTML is dangerous. For Rich Text — use htmlpurifier on PHP or DOMPurify in the browser.

CSRF: Protecting Forms and APIs

CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) — an attacker forces the victim's browser to send a request on their behalf. Example: a user is logged into a bank, opens a malicious page, which makes fetch('https://bank.ru/transfer?to=evil&amount=50000') — if the bank is unprotected, money is transferred.

CSRF tokens — standard protection for forms: the server generates a random token, stores it in the session, and inserts it as a hidden field in the form. On POST request, the token is verified. The attacker does not know the token. Laravel does this automatically with @csrf.

SameSite cookies — modern protection: SameSite=Strict or SameSite=Lax prevents the browser from sending cookies in cross-site requests. Works in all modern browsers.

API without sessions (JWT, Bearer tokens) — CSRF is irrelevant if the token is not stored in a cookie (but in the Authorization header or localStorage). However, localStorage is vulnerable to XSS — so for sensitive data, HttpOnly cookies with SameSite are preferable.

WAF and DDoS Protection

WAF (Web Application Firewall) filters HTTP traffic for attacks: SQL injection, XSS, path traversal, known exploit patterns. Options:

• Cloudflare WAF — cloud-based, OWASP Top 10 rules out of the box, custom rules via expressions. Managed Rules automatically block new threats.
• ModSecurity (Nginx/Apache) — self-hosted, OWASP Core Rule Set (CRS). Flexible but requires tuning and monitoring of false positives.
• AWS WAF — for infrastructure on AWS, integrates with CloudFront and ALB.

DDoS protection. Cloudflare at L3/L4/L7 is the de facto standard for most sites. Automatic mitigation of volumetric attacks, Under Attack Mode during active attacks. For critical infrastructure — Cloudflare Magic Transit or specialized solutions (Qrator, StormWall for the Russian market).

Rate Limiting at the application level — an additional layer. Laravel ThrottleRequests middleware: 60 requests per minute per IP for general endpoints, 5 for /login and /password/reset. Redis as a counter store — mandatory for horizontally scalable systems (otherwise limits are not synchronized between servers).

Other Mandatory Measures

Security headers. Besides CSP: X-Frame-Options: DENY (clickjacking protection), X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff (MIME sniffing), Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin, Permissions-Policy (restrict browser API access: camera, microphone, geolocation).

SQL injection. Prepared statements everywhere. No concatenation of user input into SQL strings. ORM (Eloquent, Doctrine) protects by default. $wpdb->prepare() in WordPress is mandatory.

Dependency updates. composer audit and npm audit in CI/CD pipeline. Dependabot or Renovate for automatic PRs with updates. Critical CVEs — patch within 24 hours.

Secrets and configuration. .env — never in Git. Secrets in production — via CI/CD environment variables (GitHub Secrets, GitLab CI Variables) or HashiCorp Vault. Leak detection: git-secrets, truffleHog in pre-commit hooks.

How We Work

1. Audit — code scanning, configuration review, dependency analysis, manual business logic verification.
2. Planning — vulnerability remediation plan, stack selection (CSP, WAF, rate limiting).
3. Implementation — TLS setup, CSP configuration, headers, Rate Limiting, WAF.
4. Testing — re-penetration test, load testing, false positive check.
5. Deployment and Monitoring — enable production CSP, set up alerts, train the team.

What's Included

• Report with found vulnerabilities and recommendations (PDF + code snippets)
• Ready TLS configuration (Nginx/Apache)
• CSP policy with Report-Only and production versions
• WAF and Rate Limiting setup
• Dependency update plan
• Access to monitoring tools (Sentry, Datadog)
• 30 days of post-audit support (consultations, fixes)

Timeline and Cost

The budget is calculated individually — contact us for a project evaluation.