Software vulnerabilities in 2024 exposed RBAC, API, and XSS gaps

At a glance

What this is: This is Intigriti’s analysis of the top software vulnerabilities seen in 2024, centred on access control, API leakage, and XSS.

Why it matters: It matters to IAM and security teams because software defects often become identity failures when RBAC, API authorization, and privileged sessions are weakly governed.

By the numbers:

• 94% of organizations had experienced security problems in production APIs, and 17% had experienced an API-related breach.
• XSS accounted for 10.5% of all high and critical vulnerabilities in 2023 and required an average of 100 man-days to remediate.
• The average cost of a cyber breach in 2024 was $4.88 million, according to Intigriti’s analysis.

👉 Read INTIGRITI's analysis of the top software vulnerabilities in 2024

Context

Software vulnerabilities are rarely isolated code defects. In modern application environments, access control mistakes, exposed API data, and browser-side injection bugs often become identity and privilege failures because the application is already acting on behalf of users, admins, service accounts, or connected systems. That makes software security directly relevant to IAM, PAM, and NHI governance, not just application teams.

The article’s core point is that 2024’s most damaging weaknesses were not exotic zero-days but recurring control failures that attackers could chain into data exposure or account takeover. That pattern is typical for cloud and SaaS-heavy software estates, where permissions, integrations, and privileged workflows are tightly coupled.

Key questions

Q: How should security teams prioritise vulnerabilities when identity access is part of the exposure path?

A: Start with technical severity, then re-rank issues that sit on privileged accounts, externally reachable apps, or business-critical workflows. A moderate flaw with broad access can be more dangerous than a severe flaw in a tightly isolated system. The best triage model combines vulnerability scoring with access scope, ownership, and expected blast radius.

Q: Why do access control bugs create such large breach risk in SaaS applications?

A: SaaS applications concentrate sensitive data and workflows behind shared APIs, so a single authorization mistake can expose many records or tenants at once. If the server does not revalidate who is allowed to act on a specific object, attackers can pivot from one account to broader data abuse. That makes authorization consistency a governance issue, not just a coding issue.

Q: What do teams get wrong about API security and information leakage?

A: Teams often focus on authentication while overlooking response content. If an API returns tokens, internal identifiers, or unnecessary personal data, attackers can use that information to reset accounts, impersonate users, or chain into other systems. Good API security means limiting what is exposed, validating inputs, and reviewing every response for secret-like data.

Q: How can organizations reduce the risk of XSS in privileged workflows?

A: They should test every privileged browser path, especially admin and support tools, and enforce output encoding, input validation, and a restrictive Content Security Policy. XSS becomes far more damaging when it lands in a session with elevated access, so the control objective is to prevent script execution where trusted users can reach sensitive functions.

Technical breakdown

How access control flaws become privilege abuse

Access control vulnerabilities such as IDOR occur when an application trusts a user-supplied object reference or workflow state without revalidating authorization at the server. In practice, the flaw is not just data exposure. It is a broken decision point that lets an attacker act outside the intended permission boundary. When APIs and admin workflows reuse the same authorization logic poorly, a low-privilege user can sometimes reach high-impact functions. That is why access control issues are also identity governance issues: the application is enforcing the wrong subject-object relationship.

Practical implication: test every sensitive action for server-side authorization, not just every login path.

API leakage and reset-token abuse

APIs often over-share data because developers optimise for convenience, then leave those responses in production. When an endpoint exposes names, emails, reset tokens, or internal identifiers, the problem becomes chained exploitation: data leakage enables account recovery abuse, which then enables session or account takeover. This is especially dangerous in SaaS and integration-heavy systems, where one weak response can feed multiple downstream services. Minimal response design, strict schema validation, and token scoping are the main architectural brakes on this pattern.

Practical implication: treat every sensitive API field as a potential credential surrogate and remove anything not required for the transaction.

Why XSS remains high impact in privileged workflows

Cross-Site Scripting is still dangerous because it runs in the victim’s browser context, which means the attacker inherits the victim’s authenticated session and trusted UI actions. In admin or support workflows, that can expose internal tools, hidden data, and high-privilege functions. The risk is not just script execution but identity confusion inside the browser, where the user’s trust boundary is weaker than the server’s. Content Security Policy helps limit execution paths, but the real control is systematic input handling and output encoding everywhere privileged users can interact.

Practical implication: prioritise XSS testing in staff-facing and admin paths, where a single browser session can unlock disproportionate access.

Threat narrative

Attacker objective: The attacker wants to turn a small software flaw into privileged access, account hijack, or high-value data exposure.

1. Entry occurs through exposed application flaws such as IDOR, an over-permissive API response, or a support-form XSS payload.
2. Escalation follows when the attacker uses leaked data, abused authorization, or a hijacked browser session to reach privileged workflows.
3. Impact is account takeover, unauthorized data access, service disruption, or broader compromise across connected SaaS integrations.

NHI Mgmt Group analysis

Access control debt is the hidden identity risk inside application security. The article shows that many so-called software bugs are really failures to enforce who can act on what. That is an IAM problem as much as an application problem, because RBAC only works when server-side authorization is consistent across every object, workflow, and API. Teams should treat authorization drift as governance debt, not just a code defect.

API leakage is often secret governance failure in disguise. When endpoints expose reset tokens, internal IDs, or user attributes beyond the transaction need, the application is effectively widening the trust boundary around identity data. That intersects directly with secrets management and NHI governance, because tokens behave like credentials once they leave their intended boundary. Practitioners should read this as a control-design failure, not a one-off coding mistake.

High-impact vulnerability programs need privilege context, not just severity scores. XSS, IDOR, and similar flaws become materially worse when they sit inside admin, support, or integration workflows. That means vulnerability management must incorporate who the affected user is, what authority they hold, and whether the pathway reaches human or non-human identities. For mature programmes, context-rich triage beats generic prioritisation.

Cloud and SaaS expansion is amplifying the blast radius of small defects. The article’s broader lesson is that as software ecosystems fragment into more services and integrations, a single permission flaw can propagate into multiple systems. That changes the governance question from finding every bug to limiting what any one bug can expose. Security teams should use that lens when setting assurance expectations for development and third-party review.

Continuous adversarial testing is now part of software governance, not a niche tactic. Bug bounty and dynamic testing matter because they exercise real workflow paths that scanners miss, especially where identity state, session handling, and API behaviour intersect. The implication for practitioners is clear: if a control cannot survive external testing in production-like conditions, it is not yet a reliable control.

What this signals

Workflow security is becoming an identity governance problem. As software ships more API-driven and admin-facing functionality, attackers no longer need a classic identity compromise to reach privileged actions. They can exploit the application layer itself, then inherit the authority embedded in the workflow. Teams should therefore measure authorization drift and privileged-path exposure as part of identity risk, not just application risk.

Token handling is the bridge between software defects and NHI risk. When reset tokens, API keys, or integration tokens leak through application responses, they behave like non-human credentials with immediate operational value. That is why secrets visibility and lifecycle controls should extend into application testing and third-party review. The control gap is not only in vaults; it is also in how apps emit and consume secrets.

The practical signal for security leaders is that external testing has to reach production-like paths, not just code. Bug bounty, targeted pentesting, and workflow-based review are increasingly the only ways to see chained failures across APIs, SaaS integrations, and browser sessions. The organisations that adapt fastest will be the ones that treat exposure reduction as a recurring governance discipline, not a one-off remediation sprint.

For practitioners

• Re-test authorization at the object level Verify every sensitive API and UI action with server-side authorization checks, especially where the same record can be viewed, edited, or deleted by different roles. Focus on object references, workflow transitions, and cross-account data access.
• Minimise API responses to transaction need Remove reset tokens, internal identifiers, and any field not essential to the user’s immediate action. Treat leaked response data as credential-adjacent because it can be chained into account recovery or impersonation.
• Prioritise privileged workflows for XSS testing Run targeted testing against admin, support, and employee-facing workflows where a browser session can unlock internal tools or sensitive records. Validate output encoding, CSP coverage, and input handling end to end.
• Add identity context to vulnerability triage Classify findings by the identity they touch, including human admins, service accounts, and connected APIs, then rank remediation by reachable privilege and data sensitivity rather than raw severity alone.
• Use external testing to expose workflow gaps Supplement scanners with bug bounty or managed adversarial testing that exercises SaaS integrations, cloud permissions, and chained attack paths. The goal is to find control failures that only appear in real transaction flows.

Key takeaways

• Access control failures, API leakage, and XSS remain high-impact because they turn application weaknesses into identity abuse.
• The strongest evidence in the article is the chain from exposed data or browser compromise to account takeover, service disruption, and data loss.
• Practitioners should prioritise server-side authorization, secret-minimal API responses, and privileged-path testing before attackers chain the defects together.

Key terms

• Insecure Direct Object Reference: Insecure direct object reference is an access control flaw where an application exposes an identifier that allows callers to reach records or objects they should not be able to access. In practice, it means the system trusts the request too much and fails to verify object-level permission on each access.
• API Information Leakage: API information leakage occurs when an endpoint returns more data than the transaction requires, including identifiers, personal data, or tokens. In modern systems, leaked response fields often become building blocks for account takeover, privilege escalation, or chained abuse across connected services.
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): A web application flaw where untrusted input is rendered in a way that causes script to execute in a user’s browser. It usually appears when output encoding, templating, or input handling is inconsistent across code paths and frameworks.
• Permission Drift: Permission drift is the gradual expansion of access beyond what was originally intended. It happens when roles, tokens, and service accounts accumulate unused rights over time, making cloud identities harder to review and more dangerous to compromise.

What's in the full article

INTIGRITI's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:

• The researcher examples behind the access control, API leakage, and XSS findings, including how each flaw was exercised in practice.
• The article’s practical advice on dynamic testing beyond scanners, especially where SaaS workflows and privileged users are involved.
• The prevention tips for shift-left security, bug bounty expansion, and supply chain readiness that implementation teams can action.
• The broader 2025 prioritisation guidance for cloud, SaaS, and third-party dependencies.

👉 INTIGRITI's full post covers the vulnerability examples, testing lessons, and 2025 security priorities in more detail.

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The NHI Foundation Level course, the industry's only accredited NHI security programme, covers NHI governance, secrets management, and workload identity. It helps practitioners connect identity controls to the application and integration risks highlighted in modern software security.