February 13, 2026 • 2 min read • SecBez Team
Understanding the OWASP Top 10 in the Context of PR Reviews
A practical mapping of OWASP Top 10 vulnerability classes to the pull request review workflow, with detection strategies for each.
The OWASP Top 10 is the most widely referenced list of web application security risks. But most teams encounter it as an audit checklist, not as something actionable during daily development.
Here is how each category maps to pull request reviews.
Relevant categories for PR-level detection
| OWASP Category | PR Signal | Detectable in Diff? |
|---|---|---|
| A01 Broken Access Control | Missing auth checks on new endpoints | Yes |
| A02 Cryptographic Failures | Weak hashing, plaintext secrets | Yes |
| A03 Injection | SQL, command, or path injection in new code | Yes |
| A04 Insecure Design | Harder to detect; needs architecture review | Partially |
| A05 Security Misconfiguration | Permissive CORS, debug flags in config | Yes |
| A06 Vulnerable Components | New dependency with known CVEs | Yes |
| A07 Auth Failures | Weak session handling, missing rate limits | Partially |
| A08 Data Integrity Failures | Unsigned updates, insecure deserialization | Partially |
| A09 Logging Failures | Sensitive data in logs | Yes |
| A10 SSRF | Unvalidated URLs in server-side requests | Yes |
What works at the PR level
Categories A01 through A03 are the highest-signal targets for automated PR scanning. They produce concrete findings tied to specific lines of code, which means developers can act on them immediately.
Categories like A04 (Insecure Design) require broader context than a single diff provides. These are better handled through threat modeling sessions and architecture reviews.
Practical advice
Focus your automated tooling on the categories that produce actionable findings in a diff context. Use security reviews and design docs for the rest.
A scanner that tries to cover everything will generate noise. A scanner that covers the right things at the right time will get adopted.