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OWASP Top 10 Privacy Risks Project
- Main
- Top 10 Privacy Risks
- Roadmap and Getting Involved
- Discussions and Documentation
- Survey
- FAQs
- Acknowledgements
- Project About
The project in a nutshellThe OWASP Top 10 Privacy Risks Project provides a top 10 list for privacy risks in web applications. The Project involves Privacy and security experts from all over the world who discuss and rate current privacy issues. The result is a list covering technological and organizational aspects that focus on real-life risks, not just legal issues. It uses the OECD Privacy Guidelines as a framework, with the aim of helping developers and web application providers to better understand and improve privacy. The list can also be used to assess privacy risks associated with specific web applications. Top 10 Privacy Risks 2014 (Alpha Release)
Further information is provided in the Top 10 Privacy Risks tab.
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Contact us
Project Leader
Quick DownloadLicensingOWASP Top 10 Privacy Risks Project is free to use. It is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA v3.0 License. |
News & Events
External LinksOECD Privacy Guidelines
Podcast about the project
Internet Privacy Engineering Network - IPEN Classifications
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Top 10 Privacy Risks 2014 (Alpha Release)
Alpha Release Version 1.0 of the OWASP Top 10 Privacy Risks list. For background information check the Discussions and Documentation section.
| No. | Title | Frequency | Impact | Description |
| P1 | Web Application Vulnerabilities | High | Very high | Insecurity is a key problem in any system guarding or operating on sensitive user data. Failure to suitably design and implement an application, detect a problem or promptly apply a fix (patch) is likely to result in a privacy breach. This risk includes also to the OWASP Top 10 List of web application vulnerabilities and risks resulting from them. |
| P2 | Operator-sided Data Leakage | High | Very high | Failure to prevent the leakage of any information pointing to the inference of the user data, or the data itself, to any unauthorized party resulting in loss of data confidentiality. Introduced either due to intentional malicious breach or unintentional mistake e.g. caused by insufficient access management, insecure storage, duplication of data or a lack of awareness. |
| P3 | Insufficient Data Breach Response | High | Very high |
Not informing the affected persons (data subjects) about a possible breach or data leak, resulting either from intentional or unintentional events. Failure to remedy the situation by removing the cause, attempting to limit the leaks. |
| P4 | Insufficient Deletion of Personal Data | Very high | High | Failure to effectively and/or timely delete personal data after termination of the specified purpose or upon request. |
| P5 | Non-transparent Policies, Terms and Conditions | Very high | High | Not providing a sufficient policy describing all the conditions and actions, as regarded to any action related to user data, such as its collection, storage, and processing. Failure to make the document easily-accessible, comprehensible and understandable for non-legals. |
| P6 | Collection of data not required for the user-consented purpose | Very high | High | Collecting descriptive, demographic or any other user-related data that are not needed for the purposes of the system. Applies also to data for which the user did not provide consent. |
| P7 | Sharing of Data with Third Party | High | High | Providing user data to any third-party, without obtaining the user’s consent. Sharing results either due to transfer or exchanging for a monetary compensation or otherwise due to inappropriate use of third-party resources included in the web site like widgets (e.g. maps, social networks buttons), analytics or web bugs (e.g. beacons). |
| P8 | Outdated personal data | High | Very high | The use of outdated, incorrect or bogus user data. Failure to update or correct the data. |
| P9 | Missing or insufficient Session Expiration | Medium | Very high | Failure to effectively enforce session termination. May result in unintentional collection of additional user-data without the user’s consent or awareness. |
| P10 | Insecure Data Transfer | Medium | Very high | Failure to provide data transfers over encrypted and secured channels, excluding the possibility of data leakage. Failure of enforcing mechanisms limiting the leak surface, e.g. allowing to infer any user data out of the mechanics of Web application operation. |
Note: The values between 0 to 3 used for frequency and impact rating were replaced by a textual description: 0-1: Low, 1-1.5: Medium, 1.5-2: High, > 2: Very high
Timeline
- 20 February 2014: Project start
- ...
- 21 September 2014: Publication of v1.0 of the Top 10 Privacy Risks
- 26 September 2014: Initial results presentation at the IPEN Workshop in Berlin State Parliament
- End of 2014: Define a core team for improvement and further development
- 2015: Further promotion of the Top 10 Privacy Risks Project
- 2015: Improvements, development of countermeasures and version 2
Participate
Some ways you can help:
- Discuss with us in the Discussions and documentation section
- Tell your colleagues and friends about the project
- Provide feedback (feel free to contact us)
- Apply the results in practice to improve web application privacy
Sign up to our mailing list to stay informed.
To avoid overwriting issues we will use google docs for our discussions.
- Method: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nHM9LH2rP6ac3DvJ7lehDNb9qVP5YADOQGNEuiy5okg/edit
- Privacy Risk list 2014: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ufAuGtW42gUHtJF-9_VOzNZEegZJnMyqDcyfzmsjJeQ/edit
- Draft list (already closed for 2014): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WMljvy09nulPnzv5XkFc2uxn1bSR-ftKqx5VoayTzW8/edit
- Impact rating: https://docs.google.com/a/owasp.org/document/d/1Gjd5XVJyGWHryUA2WyPSRQ0gQuaD5zWUCHU76_FHMKU/edit
- Calculation of the complete Privacy Risks list v1.0: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q7Xh4gclSieXNpVbdvyFwsZMENo2r3BoN2S3ww_W5-M/edit
OWASP Top 10 Privacy Risks Survey
A survey was performed to determine the frequency of occurrence of privacy violations in web applications.
63 people participated in total. The survey was online for 3 weeks from 4 to 25 August 2014.
Here is a summary of the results or you can download the full report.
Part 1:
Q1 Do or did you work as a:
Software Developer 26.98%
Software Designer 12.70%
Legal Practitioner 4.76%
Software Project Manager 11.11%
Data Privacy Expert 33.33%
Security Expert 66.67%
Public Servant 12.70%
Other 11.11%
Q2 In total, how many years of professional experience do you have related to privacy?
Average: 6.2 years
Q3 In total, how many years of professional experience do you have related to web applications?
Average: 8.1 years
Part 2:
The following ratings are between 1 and 4.
The possible choices for answers where:
[1] Up to one out of four web applications. (0-25%)
[2] Up to ev ery second web application. (26-50%)
[3] Up to three out of four web applications. (51-75%)
[4] More than three out of four web applications. (76-100%)
[excluded] N/A
01. Collection of data not required for main purpose
Average Rating: 3.1
02. Collection of Incorrect Data
Average Rating: 2.0
03. Collection without consent
Average Rating: 3.0
04. Problems with getting Consent
Average Rating: 2.6
05. Outdated Personal Data
Average Rating: 2.6
06. Inability of users to modify stored data
Average Rating: 2.3
07. Insufficient deletion of personal data
Average Rating: 3.3
08. Unrelated use
Average Rating: 2.7
09. Data Aggregation and Profiling
Average Rating: 2.4
10. Sharing of data with third party
Average Rating: 2.8
11. Operator-sided Data Leakage
Average Rating: 2.7
12. Insecure data transfer
Average Rating: 2.3
13. Web Application Vulnerabilities
Average Rating: 2.9
14. Insufficient Data Breach Response
Average Rating: 2.6
15. Form field design issues
Average Rating: 2.2
16. Missing or Insufficient Session Expiration
Average Rating: 2.4
17. Misleading Content
Average Rating: 2.3
18. Non-transparent Policies, Terms and Conditions
Average Rating: 3.2
19. Inappropriate Policies, Terms and Conditions
Average Rating: 2.7
20. Transfer or processing through third party
Average Rating: 2.6
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is this project only about web applications and not about any kind of software?
Web applications can easily collect data from users without their permission or without adequately informing them how their data is used. Cookies, and other trackers, enable the monitoring of user's behaviour, and this information may be used for a variety of commercial purposes, including targeted advertising, profiling, and the sale of aggregated data. This is why the subject is so important, especially for web applications.
What is the difference between this project and the OWASP Top 10?
There are two main differences. First, the OWASP top 10 describes technical risks, that are not primarily affecting privacy. Second, the OWASP Top 10 doesn't address software such as cookies or trackers, or organisational issues like privacy notices, profiling, or the sharing of data with third parties.
Why should companies and other organisations be concerned about privacy risks?
Privacy risks may have serious consequences for an organisation, such as:
- perceived harm to privacy;
- a failure to meet public expectations on both the use and protection of personal information;
- retrospective imposition of regulatory conditions;
- low adoption rates or poor participation in the scheme from both the public and partner organisations;
- the costs of redesigning the system or retro-fitting solutions;
- failure of a project or completed system;
- withdrawal of support from key supporting organisations due to perceived privacy harms; and/ or
- failure to comply with the law, leading to enforcement action from the regulator or compensation claims from individuals.
(Source: http://ico.org.uk/pia_handbook_html_v2/html/1-Chap2-2.html)
Volunteers
The Top 10 Privacy Risk list is developed by a team of volunteers. The primary contributors to date have been:
- Stefan Burgmair
- R. Jason Cronk
- Edward Delaporte
- Tim Gough
- Prof. Hans-Joachim Hof
- Lukasz Olejnik (@umbrquil)
- Florian Stahl
Partners
- University of Applied Sciences Munich
- European Data Protection Supervisory's Internet Privacy Engineering Network (IPEN)
- International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP)
Sponsors
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