New developments

You can read my previous blog post about the flap around RC1 of the OWASP Top 10. Since then, there have been a number of important developments.

The first and biggest was that it was decided that the previous project leaders, Dave Wichers and Jeff Williams would be replaced by Andrew van der Stock, who himself has extensive experience in AppSec and OWASP. Andrew later brought in Neil Smithline and Torsten Gigler to assist him in leading the project and Brian Glas (who performed some excellent analysis on RC1) to assist with data analysis of newly collected data.

Next, the OWASP Top 10 was extensively discussed at the OWASP summit in May considering both how it got to where it is today and how it should continue in the future.

Key Outcomes and my Thoughts

The outcomes from the summit can be seen here and here and the subsequent decisions by the project team by the project team are documented here. The most important points (IMHO) that came out of these sessions and the subsequent decisions were as follows:

  • There is a plan in place to require multiple project leaders from multiple organisations for all OWASP flagship projects to try and avoid the independence issues I discussed in my previous post.
  • It is almost certain that the controversial A7 (Insufficient Attack Protection) and A10 (Underprotected APIs) the RC1 will not appear in the next RC or final version. The reason given is similar to my reason in a previous post. These aren’t vulnerabilities (or more specifically vulnerability categories). I am really pleased with this decision and I think it will make it much more straightforward to explain and discuss the Top 10 in a coherent way.
  • A7 and A10 were intended to be occupied by “forward looking” items. This will remain the case and this discussion will be opened up to the community by way of a survey where AppSec professionals can provide their feedback on the additional vulnerability categories which they expect to be most important over the next few years. The survey is only open until 30th August 2017 and is available here. I would strongly recommend that anyone with AppSec knowledge/experience takes the time to complete this for the the good of the new Top 10 version.
  • Additional time is being provided to supply data to be used in assessing the rest of the Top 10. The window is only open until 18th September 2017 and is available here. I’m not honestly sure what the benefit of gathering additional data on the 8 current vulnerability categories is aside from practice for next time.
  • An updated release timeline has been set with RC2 being targeted for 9th October 2017 to allow for feedback and additional modifications before the final release targeted for 18th November 2017.
  • In general, transparency is to be increased with feedback and preparation processes to be primarily based in the project’s Github repository going forward.
  • The OWASP Top 10 is “art” and not science. It is partially data based but intended to be significantly judgment based as well. We need to be clear about this when we are talking about the project.
  • The OWASP Top 10 is for everyone but especially CISOs rather than for developers. It is intended to capture the most high risk vulnerability categories. Once again, developers, especially those working on a new project, should be using the OWASP Top 10 Proactive Controls project as their first reference rather than the main OWASP Top 10.

Conclusion

I am very pleased with the way this has turned out so far. I think that the concerns over such an important project have been taken seriously and steps have been taken to protect the integrity of the project and safeguard its future. I think Andrew, Neil, Torsten and Brian are in a great position to carry on the huge efforts which Dave and Jeff put into this project and maintain it’s position of OWASP’s defacto #1 project.

At the same time, I think that this episode has provided an insight into the efforts and contributions required to progress an OWASP project, shown how an open approach leads to better feedback and contributions and also highlighted other OWASP projects which are complimentary to the Top 10. Overall, I think people should see this story as a positive outcome of a collaborative approach and feel encouraged to take part and contribute to this project and other OWASP projects.

Updated:

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