What you'll learn

Authentication is the front door to every application and the attackers’ favorite entry point. Misunderstanding its failure modes leads to poor risk decisions, weak defenses, and false confidence in security controls. In this course, OWASP: Authentication Failures, you’ll learn to analyze, understand, and evaluate authentication security from an attacker and defender perspective. First, you’ll explore how weak passwords, credential stuffing, and session fixation attacks work in practice and why they are so effective. Next, you’ll discover how modern authentication concepts such as MFA, secure password storage, and token-based authentication reduce real-world risk. Finally, you’ll learn how to assess login and session protections such as rate limiting, session timeouts, and secure cookie handling as part of a layered defense strategy. When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge of different authentication failure scenarios needed to confidently evaluate authentication security, recognize high-risk design flaws, and make informed security decisions in real-world environments.