SINGAPORE, February 17th, 2026, CyberNewswire – The OWASP Smart Contract Security Project has unveiled its 2026 Top 10 framework, a comprehensive risk prioritization tool derived from an analysis of real-world blockchain exploits throughout 2025.
In 2025, numerous crypto protocols faced substantial smart contract issues, highlighting systemic vulnerabilities rather than isolated errors. CredShields played a pivotal role in compiling exploit patterns, utilizing data from incidents in decentralized finance, cross-chain infrastructures, and upgradeable systems to inform the rankings.
Key Protocol Failure Patterns
The 2026 Top 10 list identifies recurring failure types in operational settings, including:
- Misconfigured access controls
- Failures in maintaining business logic invariants
- Dependence on unreliable oracles
- Exploitation through flash loans
- Risks associated with upgrades and proxies
In the past year, vulnerabilities often emerged from:
- Unprotected administrative keys
- Weak governance permissions
- Timing discrepancies in cross-chain operations
- Flaws in economic models
Though contracts functioned as intended, adversarial conditions revealed hidden assumptions.
Advancing Security Upstream
The latest rankings advocate for integrating risk assessments early in the development process. This includes:
- Validating role-based permissions
- Simulating upgrade paths
- Testing oracle dependencies for stress
- Implementing automated CI/CD checks
- Conducting invariant-based design reviews
Achieving an audit is insufficient; resilience against adversarial conditions must be modeled prior to deployment.
Broadening the Threat Landscape
Recognizing that major losses in 2025 were due to operational attack vectors, a supplementary Top 15 Web3 Attack Vectors list is presented. This details threats such as governance abuse, multisig compromises, and infrastructure vulnerabilities.
The complete OWASP Smart Contract Top 10: 2026 and additional resources are accessible through the OWASP Smart Contract Security Project.
About OWASP
The Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) is a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing software security through open standards and community-led initiatives. Its Smart Contract Security Project offers practical frameworks to aid developers and security teams in mitigating common blockchain vulnerabilities.
About CredShields
CredShields is a security research and product firm focusing on fortifying smart contract and blockchain infrastructures. Through platforms like SolidityScan and Web3HackHub, CredShields provides exploit intelligence, automated vulnerability detection, and structured risk modeling to help development teams identify and address weaknesses before deployment.
