2006 Web Security Report: Overview of Increasing Vulnerabilities and Flaws

Less rigor in Web programming, an increasing variety of software, and restrictions on Web security testing have combined to make flaws in Web software the most reported security issues this year to date, according to the latest data from the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project. A draft report on the latest numbers from the vulnerability database found that 4,375 security issues had so far been cataloged in the first nine months of 2006, just shy of the 4,538 issues documented last year.

The data shows that Web flaws have continued their meteoric rise since 2005, capturing the top-three spots on the list of most common vulnerabilities. Buffer overflows, a perennial favorite, fell to the No. 4 slot. "The takeaway is that researchers are paying a lot more attention to Web vulnerabilities, and if companies don't want to get caught up in that, then they need to pay attention to those flaws," said Steven Christey, the security researcher that authored the draft report and the CVE Editor for The MITRE Corp., a nonprofit government contractor. The jump in Web-based vulnerabilities is fueled by the simplicity of exploiting many of the most common Web vulnerabilities, the enormous number of Web applications freely available, and the difficulty in eradicating cross-site scripting flaws.

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