Security Audit Services

The OWASP Top 10 is the Open Web Application Security Project's list of the ten most critical web application security risks, updated every 3-4 years based on real-world breach data. The 2021 Top 10: A01 Broken Access Control (the most common users accessing other users' data), A02 Cryptographic Failures (weak encryption, plaintext passwords), A03 Injection (SQL injection, command injection), A04 Insecure Design (security requirements not considered during design), A05 Security Misconfiguration (default credentials, verbose errors), A06 Vulnerable and Outdated Components (known CVEs in dependencies), A07 Identification and Authentication Failures (weak passwords, missing MFA, broken session management), A08 Software and Data Integrity Failures (unsigned updates, CI/CD pipeline compromise), A09 Security Logging and Monitoring Failures (no detection of attacks), A10 Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF forcing the server to access internal resources). The OWASP Top 10 is referenced by PCI DSS, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 as the baseline for application security assessment. Demonstrating OWASP compliance is a common enterprise customer security questionnaire requirement.

A security audit is a review-based assessment examining code, configuration, documentation, and architecture for security weaknesses without actively exploiting them. An auditor reviews the IAM policies, checks whether MFA is enforced, inspects the authentication implementation, and reads the SAST findings. A penetration test (pen test) is an authorised simulated attack a security professional attempts to exploit vulnerabilities using the same techniques a real attacker would use. The penetration tester probes the live application for SQL injection, tests for authentication bypass, and attempts to escalate privileges. Audits are less invasive and carry no risk of production disruption appropriate as a first step and for compliance documentation. Penetration tests provide higher confidence in real-world exploitability a finding that is difficult to exploit in a pen test is less urgent than one that can be exploited in seconds. ClickMasters performs security audits; penetration tests are performed by specialised offensive security firms. ClickMasters can recommend appropriate penetration testing partners.