OWASP Top 10 2025 – IAAA Failures
Overview
This room introduced the IAAA security model, a framework that explains how applications identify users, verify their identity, control what they can access, and record their actions. The room demonstrates how weaknesses in these areas relate directly to several vulnerabilities in the OWASP Top 10 (2025).
Rather than focusing on exploitation, the room explains the security concepts behind common authentication and access control failures that penetration testers and defenders encounter in real-world web applications.
Key Concepts
Identification
The process of claiming an identity, such as providing a username or email address.
Authentication
Verifying that the user is who they claim to be using passwords, MFA, certificates, or other authentication methods.
Authorization
Determining what an authenticated user is allowed to access or modify after logging in.
Accountability
Recording user actions through logging and monitoring so security teams can investigate incidents and trace malicious activity.
OWASP Top 10 Mapping
A01 – Broken Access Control
- Authorization failures
- IDOR vulnerabilities
- Missing permission checks
- Privilege escalation
A07 – Identification and Authentication Failures
- Weak authentication mechanisms
- Default or weak passwords
- Session management issues
- Missing multi-factor authentication
A09 – Security Logging and Monitoring Failures
- Insufficient logging
- Missing audit trails
- Delayed detection of attacks
- Difficult forensic investigations
Lessons Learned
- Authentication alone does not guarantee security; proper authorization is equally important.
- Every sensitive action should be validated on the server.
- Comprehensive logging is essential for incident response and accountability.
- Many OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities can be understood by determining which part of the IAAA model has failed.
Takeaways
The IAAA model provides a simple way to analyze application security:
- Identification: Who is the user?
- Authentication: Can they prove their identity?
- Authorization: Are they permitted to perform this action?
- Accountability: Can their actions be traced?
Keeping these four questions in mind during a web application assessment provides a structured methodology for identifying authentication, authorization, and monitoring weaknesses.