TL;DR: Common web application vulnerabilities still turn into identity and access failures, INTIGRITI reports, with broken access control, authentication weaknesses, SSRF, misconfiguration, and integrity issues widening the blast radius. Web app testing has to follow the trust boundary, especially where authorisation, session control, and server reachability decide impact.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by INTIGRITI: “Bug bounty glossary: common web application vulnerabilities”.
Key questions
Q: Why do SSRF flaws create such broad exposure in web applications?
A: SSRF is dangerous because the vulnerable application becomes a trusted proxy that can reach internal services, cloud metadata, or hidden endpoints the attacker cannot access directly.
Q: What do teams get wrong about web application security testing?
A: A common mistake is relying only on periodic automated scans or only on manual testing.
Q: Where does broken access control fail in practice?
A: It fails when the application checks that a user is logged in but does not reliably check whether that user is allowed to reach a specific object, action, or administrative function.
Practitioner guidance
- Tighten access-control testing around resource-level authorisation Validate every object, action, and admin route for direct object access, broken authorisation, and session-bound enforcement rather than relying on login success alone.
- Harden authentication and session boundaries Review brute-force tolerance, MFA enforcement, account lockout rules, and session management so the application cannot be used as a weak identity front door.
- Constrain server-initiated network reach Block unnecessary outbound requests from application servers, especially paths that can reach metadata services, internal APIs, or administrative endpoints.
Bottom line: Common web application vulnerabilities often become identity and access failures rather than standalone coding defects.
Glossary terms: Broken Access Control, Server-Side Request Forgery, Security Misconfiguration, Software Or Data Integrity Failure
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Web app vulnerability management is really access-governance management in disguise. The article shows that the most damaging web flaws are not abstract code issues but failures in who can access what, under which conditions, and through which trust boundary. For IAM and security teams, that means application testing has to map defects to access paths, not just vulnerability categories.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What should teams do when serialized inputs can influence application behaviour?
A: They should assume any unvalidated object or update package can become an execution path, then require integrity checks before the application consumes it. If the application cannot prove the input is trustworthy, it should not use that input to change permissions, state, or code execution.
👉 Read our full editorial: Common web app vulnerabilities still expose identity and access controls