OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities & STRIDE
Mapping the OWASP Top 10 to the STRIDE Threat Model
STRIDE categorizes threats as Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, and Elevation of Privilege. Mapping the OWASP Top 10 to STRIDE clarifies what you’re defending and which controls to choose.
What is STRIDE?
🪪 Spoofing
Impersonating a user, service, or device. Controls: strong auth, MFA, key management.
Identity🧪 Tampering
Unauthorized data/code modification. Controls: input validation, signatures, integrity checks.
Integrity🧾 Repudiation
Denying actions performed. Controls: audit logs, signatures, time stamps.
Accountability🔎 Information Disclosure
Leaking sensitive data. Controls: encryption, least privilege, redaction.
Confidentiality📉 Denial of Service
Disrupting service availability. Controls: rate limits, quotas, autoscaling, WAF.
Availability🛗 Elevation of Privilege
Gaining extra permissions. Controls: RBAC/ABAC, sandboxing, hardening.
AuthorizationOWASP Top 10 → STRIDE Mapping
A static, print-friendly table for maximum compatibility.
| OWASP Category | STRIDE | Rationale & Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Injection | Tampering | Untrusted input alters queries/commands. Ex: SQLi, command/template injection. |
| Broken Authentication & Session Management | Spoofing, Repudiation | Impersonation via weak auth/session; poor trails hinder accountability. |
| Insufficient Logging & Monitoring | Information Disclosure | Missed detections of data exposure; logs may leak secrets if misconfigured. |
| Insecure Design | Elevation of Privilege | Missing trust boundaries & defense-in-depth enable escalation paths. |
| Security Misconfiguration | Spoofing, Tampering, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service | Default creds, open buckets, verbose errors, and no rate limits widen attack surface. |
| Vulnerable & Outdated Components | Tampering, Denial of Service | Known CVEs allow integrity corruption or service crashes (e.g., ReDoS). |
| Insufficient Attack Protection | Tampering, Repudiation, Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege | Missing WAF/rate limits/anomaly detection enables payload tampering, abuse, and EoP. |
| Poor Code Quality | Tampering, Elevation of Privilege | Unsafe patterns cause state corruption or privilege bypass (e.g., IDORs). |
| Insecure Communication | Information Disclosure | Plaintext/weak TLS leaks data; no pinning risks MITM. |
| Risky Business Logic | Tampering, Elevation of Privilege | Flawed workflows allow manipulation or authZ bypass (e.g., price hacks). |
How to apply this mapping
Design & Architecture
Identify which STRIDE goals a change affects and pick controls accordingly (e.g., Tampering → integrity checks; DoS → quotas/backpressure).
Testing & CI
Map test plans to STRIDE: negative tests for Spoofing, fuzzing for Tampering, chaos/latency tests for DoS, authZ tests for EoP.
Operations & Monitoring
Build non-repudiation with structured logs, protect sensitive fields, and alert per threat goal (e.g., EoP spikes, auth failures).
In conclusion: Mapping OWASP Top 10 to STRIDE clarifies the “why” behind each control, enabling a practical, layered defense for users and data.