Projects/OWASP Mobile Security Project - Top Ten Mobile Risks

Call For Volunteers

We are pleased to announce a call for participation to help shape the OWASP Mobile Top 10 Risks. This “Top 10” initiative is intended to help organizations determine how to best apply development and security resources to better protect their mobile applications and data.

In order to compile the most thorough and universally accepted guidance possible, we are reaching out to software developers, security consultants, and thought leaders from all industries to participate. This includes independent developers and consultants, startups, large consultancies, and large development companies. If you have an interest in mobile application security and the expertise to contribute, we invite you to get involved with this initiative. The OWASP organization is built on openness and transparency, and our vision is for this initiative to adhere to these very same high standards. Participation is open and highly encouraged for all.

For more information on how you can participate in this very important initiative, please visit the detailed announcement page: Call For Volunteers

About this list

The below list is the result of a brainstorming session conducted by a small number of security consultants and application testers. For this list to carry weight going forward, it should be derived from the larger community that has had experience reviewing and testing mobile applications for security. A new initiative has been proposed to survey organizations for anonymous vulnerability data, and use this data to build the next version of this list.

Top 10 Mobile Risks Draft 0.1

1. Insecure or unnecessary client-side data storage
2. Lack of data protection in transit
3. Personal data leakage
4. Failure to protect resources with strong authentication
5. Failure to implement least privilege authorization policy
6. Client-side injection
7. Client-side DOS
8. Malicious third-party code
9. Client-side buffer overflow
10. Failure to apply server-side controls

Additional Considerations

1. Abuse of client side paid resources
2. Failure to properly handle inbound SMS messages
3. Failure to properly handle outbound SMS messages
4. Malicious / Fake applications from appstore
5. Ability of one application to view data or communicate with other applications
6. Switching networks during a transaction
7. Failure to Protecting Sensitive Data a rest
8. Failure to disable insecure platform features in application (caching of keystrokes, screen data)