The next breach won’t come from what you missed — but from what you never even thought to check

The OWASP Top 10: 2025 More Than a List

The OWASP 2025 Security Pillars represent three foundational layers of modern application security: Architectural Security at the base provides an integrated, strategic security approach; AI/LLMs in the middle address secure implementation of artificial intelligence technologies; and NHIs at the top focus on protecting non-human identities such as service accounts and API keys. Together, these pillars form a comprehensive security framework for contemporary application environments.

Most AppSec teams still operate like it’s 2015 — reactive, tool-driven, drowning in alerts. But the 2025 landscape is different: developers ship AI-generated code faster than scanners can keep up, machine identities outnumber humans by thousands to one, and even your copilots are now attack surfaces.

• Developers are shipping code through AI-assisted pipelines that generate vulnerabilities faster than scanners can find them.
• APIs, machine identities, and cloud micro services now outnumber human users by thousands to one.
• And AI systems themselves — from chatbots to copilots — are becoming the new attack surface.

OWASP’s new direction mirrors this reality. It’s evolving from a list of vulnerabilities to a map of systemic risk across the software lifecycle — the design phase, the identity layer, and even the AI that writes your code.

The OWASP 2025 Shift: From Vulnerabilities to Exposure

The OWASP Top 10: 2021 was about bad code.
The OWASP Top 10: 2025 will be about bad context.

Here’s how the mindset is changing:

What’s emerging is a blueprint for continuous risk posture management, not just periodic vulnerability cleanup.

The New Frontiers of Application Risk

OWASP has already released new companion lists that preview where the 2025 mindset is heading:

OWASP Top 10: 2025 — Large Language Models (LLMs)

AI is rewriting code and business logic — and attackers are rewriting prompts.
Top risks include:

• Prompt Injection – Manipulating models to leak secrets or override intent.
• Sensitive Data Exposure – LLMs trained on proprietary data revealing it later.
• Unvalidated Output – AI-generated content triggering insecure system actions.

In short: your chatbot might be your next breach.

OWASP Top 10: 2025 — Non-Human Identities (NHIs)

Your infrastructure isn’t just full of users — it’s full of automations with service accounts, API keys and secrets and credentials.
OWASP’s latest research projects — including the 2025 Top 10 for Non-Human Identities — warn that automation accounts, service tokens, and machine identities are quickly becoming the next frontier for attackers.

Key risks include:

• Improper Offboarding - Orphaned service accounts with lingering admin access.
• Secret Leakage - Hard-coded tokens across build systems and containers.
• Privilege Drift - Bots accumulating access rights over time.

If you don’t know how many service accounts you have, you don’t know your real attack surface.

Why This Is a Turning Point

The OWASP 2025 era marks the transition from defensive security to architectural security.
This means:

• Security shifts left — into design and planning, not just testing.
• AI and identity are now first-class citizens in threat models.
• Context, correlation, and prioritization become more valuable than raw scan results.

And that’s exactly where Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) becomes essential.

How ASPM Prepares You for OWASP 2025

The upcoming changes will overwhelm any organization still relying on isolated scanners, spreadsheets, or manual triage.

ASPM — the next evolution of AppSec — bridges that gap by acting as your operational command center:

• Ingest - Code, cloud, container, and identity data.
• Correlate - Link findings across tools to reveal root causes.
• Prioritize - Focus on exploitable risks that affect business-critical assets.
• Remediate - Automate fixes, guided by context and ownership.

In a world where “secure-by-design” isn’t optional anymore, ASPM turns compliance into continuous assurance.

What You Should Do Before the List Drops

• Audit Your AppSec Posture – Know which OWASP 2021 categories you still struggle with.
• Map Your AI and Automation Footprint – Include LLM usage, pipelines, and API tokens.
• Implement Identity Lifecycle Controls – Especially for service accounts.
  Invest in Contextual Correlation – Adopt a system (like GoSentrix ASPM) that connects code-to-cloud visibility.
• Train Developers Early – The new Top 10 will reward teams who think architecturally, not reactively.

The OWASP Top 10: 2025 isn't just a checklist — it's a measuring stick. Organizations that build security into architecture will lead in 2025. Those that remain reactive will fade.