If you want one map of what most often goes wrong in mobile app security, it is the OWASP Mobile Top 10. It is a ranked list of the most critical risks in mobile apps, maintained by OWASP, and it is the common vocabulary security teams, auditors, and tools use to talk about mobile weaknesses. Knowing the list tells you where to look first, from how you handle credentials to how you store data and protect the binary. Here is what the Mobile Top 10 is, the current 2024 entries, and how it relates to the deeper standards.
Short answer
The OWASP Mobile Top 10 is OWASP's ranked list of the most critical security risks for mobile apps, used as an awareness baseline by developers, auditors, and security tools. Per OWASP, the 2024 list runs from M1 Improper Credential Usage through M10 Insufficient Cryptography, covering issues like insecure communication, insecure data storage, and weak binary protections. It is a starting point for understanding mobile risk, not a full checklist; the deeper OWASP Mobile Application Security Verification Standard (MASVS) and Testing Guide (MASTG) define the detailed controls and tests. Use the Top 10 to know the categories, then verify against MASVS.
What you should know
- It ranks mobile risks: the most critical mobile app security issues.
- The 2024 list is current: M1 through M10, refreshed from earlier versions.
- It is awareness, not a full standard: a baseline, not a complete checklist.
- MASVS and MASTG go deeper: the verification standard and testing guide.
- Tools map to it: scanners and audits speak in these categories.
What is the OWASP Mobile Top 10?
It is a community-maintained list of the ten most critical mobile application security risks. OWASP, a nonprofit focused on software security, publishes the list to give the industry a shared, prioritized view of what goes wrong in mobile apps most often and most seriously, the same way the better-known OWASP Top 10 does for web applications. It is meant as an awareness document: a developer, an auditor, or a tool can use it to make sure the obvious, high-impact risk categories are considered. It does not tell you exactly how to test each item, which is the role of the deeper standards, but it frames the landscape, so it is usually the first reference point when someone asks what mobile security risks they should care about.
What is on the 2024 list?
Ten ranked risk categories. The table lists them.
| Rank | Risk |
|---|---|
| M1 | Improper Credential Usage |
| M2 | Inadequate Supply Chain Security |
| M3 | Insecure Authentication and Authorization |
| M4 | Insufficient Input/Output Validation |
| M5 | Insecure Communication |
| M6 | Inadequate Privacy Controls |
| M7 | Insufficient Binary Protections |
| M8 | Security Misconfiguration |
| M9 | Insecure Data Storage |
| M10 | Insufficient Cryptography |
These map directly to mistakes seen in real apps: hardcoded or mishandled credentials, risky dependencies, weak login and access checks, unvalidated input, plain HTTP traffic, leaky privacy practices, an unprotected binary, misconfigured components, sensitive data in insecure storage, and weak or misused cryptography. If you recognize several of these from your own app, that is the point: the list is designed to surface the categories worth auditing first.
How does the Mobile Top 10 relate to MASVS?
They work together: the Top 10 is awareness, MASVS is verification. The Mobile Top 10 names the risk categories at a high level, which is ideal for orientation and communication, but it does not give you a pass or fail set of controls. The OWASP Mobile Application Security Verification Standard (MASVS) does that, defining the specific security requirements an app should meet across storage, cryptography, network, platform, and resilience, and the Mobile Application Security Testing Guide (MASTG) describes how to test them. So the practical workflow is to use the Top 10 to understand the landscape and prioritize, then assess your app against MASVS for the concrete requirements. A scanner or audit that reports in MASVS terms is checking the detailed controls behind the Top 10 categories.
What to watch out for
The first trap is treating the Top 10 as a complete checklist, when it is an awareness baseline; passing a vague reading of it does not mean your app is secure. The second is recognizing a risk category but not knowing the specific control, which is where MASVS comes in. The third is assuming these are someone else's problems, when issues like insecure storage and improper credential usage are exactly what AI-generated and quickly built apps ship. A pre-submission scan such as PTKD.com (https://ptkd.com) reads your compiled APK, AAB, or IPA against OWASP MASVS, which addresses the risks the Top 10 names, so you get a concrete assessment rather than a general awareness of the categories. The Top 10 tells you what to care about; the scan tells you where your app stands.
What to take away
- The OWASP Mobile Top 10 is OWASP's ranked list of the most critical mobile app security risks, used as a shared awareness baseline.
- The 2024 list runs M1 Improper Credential Usage through M10 Insufficient Cryptography, covering credentials, supply chain, auth, validation, communication, privacy, binary protection, configuration, storage, and cryptography.
- It is awareness, not a full checklist; MASVS defines the detailed controls and MASTG the tests.
- Use the Top 10 to prioritize, then assess your app against MASVS with a pre-submission scan such as PTKD.com for a concrete result.
