Top Cyber Threats

OWASP’s “Top 10” is a widely used, application-security-focused reference published every three years, but major real-world breaches show that organizations must also consider attack vectors beyond classic web application flaws. Recent high-profile data breaches underscore that, besides system disruption, information theft is often the most damaging outcome, affecting both companies and end users.

Five above-average risks are emphasized: social engineering, malware/ransomware, insider threats, insecure APIs, and data breaches. Social engineering targets people rather than systems and can induce purchases, physical access, money transfers, or disclosure of confidential information; it commonly appears as phishing (deceptive emails and spoofed sites, including man-in-the-middle-style “pass-through” scenarios), vishing (phone-based phishing), and impersonation (posing as a known person, often via fake social profiles). Malware commonly spreads through websites, plugins, and email attachments, and can enable screen capture or full remote control—especially dangerous in SaaS contexts if credentials or sessions are stolen. Insider threat is described as a persistent risk: employees—whether malicious, financially pressured, or coerced—can misuse authorized access, particularly where separation of duties is absent.

APIs are highlighted as a growing weak point in distributed and internet-exposed architectures; inadequate authentication, authorization, anomaly detection, or request handling can even paralyze organizations. Data breaches often result from classical hacking combined with these methods, and SaaS customers must increasingly rely on providers’ infrastructure security. Across all risks, insecure APIs and insider threats are assessed as having the highest potential impact, while large-scale data breaches may be severe yet not always existential. Recommended countermeasures include executive involvement, risk cataloging, strong access and privileged access management, Zero Trust plus endpoint protection, and standardized API security with dedicated API management.

• The OWASP Foundation publishes the OWASP Top 10 every three years.
• OWASP provides controls, cheat sheets, and best practices for security testing with a primary focus on application security.
• Sensitive Data Exposure (A3:2017) is ranked as the third largest threat for a web application in OWASP’s Top 10 list.
• Social engineering is categorized into phishing, vishing, and impersonation.
• Phishing commonly uses trustworthy-looking emails to induce clicks on malicious links or attachments.
• Vishing is phishing conducted over the telephone.
• Malware is distributed via websites, plugins, and email attachments, and more rarely via USB sticks or manipulated data cables.
• Malware goals described include ad injection, screen recording/transmission, and full remote control of a device.
• Insecure APIs and insider threats are identified as the highest-impact threats among the five risks discussed.
• Each of the five risks is assessed at 5 or higher on a 1–10 probability scale.

• “This means that the biggest threat, apart from paralyzing a system, is the theft of information.”
• “There are even reports of high-ranking employees being ‘hacked’ in their favorite bar in order to gain access to sensitive information.”
• “The vulnerability could be the end-user.”
• “Any actions can be carried out in the context of the user.”
• “Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is often used to create malware.”
• “A silent but constant danger is the employees of a company.”
• “The danger is completely generic - the employee can execute and manipulate everything for which they have authorization and there are no further approval steps, such as a defined Separation-of-Duties.”
• “If they are not properly secured, entire companies can be paralyzed.”
• “Since APIs usually make many operations accessible, it is essential to protect them.”
• “The distributed applications with the As-a-Service concept and hybrid infrastructures offer new attack points, but attack methods themselves have changed less.”