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OWASP A09: Security logging and monitoring failures

Would you know if your website was being attacked?

Background

Average detection time is around 200 days. Usually because nobody was watching.

Questions to ask yourself

  • Does our website log security-relevant events?
  • Does anyone read those logs?
  • Are we alerted automatically on obvious anomalies?
  • Are logs stored somewhere an attacker can't reach?

What you can do today

Cheap monitoring beats no monitoring

You don't need a SIEM. You need someone reading the right thing.

  • 01Log authentication, admin actions, and errors. Send logs off the server.
  • 02Set basic alerts: failed-login bursts, new admin users, bulk data exports.
  • 03For serious sites, a managed monitoring service should be watching out of hours.