OWASP Risk Rating Methodology

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OWASP Testing Guide v2 Table of Contents

Application Security Risks

Background

Application security risk analysis consists in the assessment of the levels of risk calculated for threats and vulnerabilities. Risk assessment practitioners usually refer to application security risk analysis as technical risk assessment. In the technical risk assessment, threat and vulnerability represent the two factors (i.e. multipliers) used for risk calculation. Depending on the empirical risk formulation choosen, different parameters can be used to characterize threats and vulnerabilities and calculate the final risk value. By associating risk values to each of the findings it is possible to prioritize vulnerabilities anf fix first the ones with higher risks that is by threats with highest impact, ease of exploitation and exposure. On the other hand, information risk analysts also look to other risk factors while deciding the strategy for mitigating application security risks such the evaluation of business impacts derived by the exploitation of the vulnerability. Technical risks and business impact analysis are both evaluated as part of the information risk management strategy that includes selection and adoption of countermeasures justified by the identified risks to assets and the reduction of those risks to acceptable levels. For the purpose of this guide we limit the scope of risk evaluation to technical impact analysis that is the evaluation of risk for found vulnerabilities and identified threats.

Definitions

• Risk is the probability that a particular threat will exercise a particular information system vulnerability and the resulting impact if this should occur.
• Threat is the potential to exercise (accidentally trigger or intentionally exploit) a specific vulnerability
• Vulnerability is a flaw or weakness in system security procedures, design, implementation, or internal controls that could be exercised (accidentially triggered or intentionally exploited) and result in a security breach or a violation of the system's security policy.

Risks Formulation

For the purposes of a security assessment, OWASP defines the risk associated with a security finding as a product of the Impact (Imp), Ease of Exploitation (EoE) and Exposure (Exp):

Risk = Imp x EoE x Exp

By breaking down the security findings in this way, threats criticality and the implication of the vulnerability exposure may be better evaluated and risks can be prioritized and managed. The risk evaluation is taken out of the context of the nature of the application or host (e.g. server, firewall or workstation), and regardless of the type of data stored on it.
The impact and the easiness of exploitation of a threat are usually considered the main factors in determining the criticality of threats. In this case, impact is taken as a measure of the implication of a discrete component being compromised (e.g. attack potency). The ease of exploitation for a threat can be further described as a factor of discoverability and reproducibility of a threat. Exposure quantifies the likelihood that the vulnerability can be compromised through its availability. For example, an easily exploited vulnerability on an internet facing host would be highly exposed, and therefore very likely to be compromised. An internal host with a vulnerability that was difficult to exploit would present a much lower threat.

Threat Categorizations

For the purpose of the OWASP testing guide, threats can be identified for each of the testing category using threat categorization frameworks(e.g. STRIDE, TRIKE, SecurityFrame etc). OWASP does not endorse any specific threat categorization, but rather recommends the adoption of a threat categorization depending on the specific objectives of the security assessment. In general, categorizations that focus on threats rather than attacks are more suitable for the identification of countermeasures. Example of specific objectives for the risk evaluation can be:

• Regulatory and requirements compliance
• Tactical prioritization for mitigation of vulnerabilities (e.g. high risk first)
• Overall risk strategy selection

Risks Calculation

Before any kind of calculation can be done appropriate values for the impact, ease of exploitation and exposure have to be found. Every risk parameter can be assigned a qualitative value based on its importance (e.g. severity). Using qualitative values rather than quantitative ones can help avoid the ranking becoming overly subjective. The same argument holds true for the number of different qualitative values, hence, only three different values (high, medium, low) are used.

However while determining qualitative values for risk several criteria and qualitative ranking systems can be used:

• Proprietary common vulnerability list risk ranking
• Industry standard vulnerability severity and risk rankings (CVSS)
• Security-enhancing process models vulnerability root cause categorization (CLASP)
• Threat modeling risk rankings (DREAD, TRIKE, PTA, CORAS/SECURIS, PTA)

Risks Calculation Models (TBD)

Example: A (TBD)

Risk Categories: Impact (imp)

• critical
• high
• medium
• low

Ease of Exploitation (EoE)

• Easy
• Moderate
• Difficult

Exposure (Exp)

• Very high
• High
• Medium
• Low

Example: B (TBD)

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OWASP Testing Guide v2

Here is the OWASP Testing Guide v2 Table of Contents