Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
40 lines (33 loc) · 5.95 KB

attack-surface.md

File metadata and controls

40 lines (33 loc) · 5.95 KB

Attack Surface Analysis for krallin/tini

Attack Surface: Exploitation of PID 1 Privileges

  • Description: tini runs as PID 1 within the container, granting it unique privileges. A vulnerability in tini that allows for arbitrary code execution could be leveraged to gain root privileges inside the container.
  • Tini Contribution: tini is the PID 1 process. Any compromise of tini directly equates to compromising the most privileged process within the container's PID namespace.
  • Example: A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in tini's command-line argument parsing. An attacker crafts a malicious container image that provides overly long or specially crafted arguments to tini. When the container starts, tini parses these arguments, triggering the buffer overflow and allowing the attacker to inject and execute arbitrary code with root privileges inside the container.
  • Impact: Full container compromise, potential for container escape (depending on container runtime vulnerabilities and configuration), data breach, denial of service, lateral movement within the container environment.
  • Risk Severity: Critical
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Minimize Tini's Attack Surface: Use tini with minimal configuration and avoid unnecessary command-line arguments.
    • Regular Security Audits of Tini: Rely on the tini project and security researchers to conduct regular security audits and vulnerability assessments of tini's codebase.
    • Keep Tini Updated: Immediately update tini to the latest version when security patches are released to address identified vulnerabilities.
    • Container Security Hardening: Implement general container security hardening practices to limit the impact of a container compromise, such as using read-only root filesystems, dropping capabilities, and using seccomp profiles. These measures reduce the potential damage even if tini is compromised.

Attack Surface: Supply Chain Compromise of Tini Binary

  • Description: The tini binary itself is compromised during its build, distribution, or storage process. This results in users unknowingly deploying a malicious tini binary within their container images.
  • Tini Contribution: Using tini as a dependency introduces a supply chain risk. If the source or distribution channel of tini binaries is compromised, all users relying on those compromised binaries become vulnerable.
  • Example: An attacker compromises the build infrastructure of a repository distributing pre-built tini binaries. They inject a backdoor or malware into the tini executable. Users downloading and incorporating this compromised binary into their container images unknowingly deploy a backdoored init process, potentially allowing the attacker persistent access or control over their containers.
  • Impact: Potentially full container compromise across numerous deployments, widespread data breach, malware deployment, long-term persistent access for attackers.
  • Risk Severity: Critical
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Verify Tini Binary Integrity: Download tini binaries only from trusted and official sources, such as the official tini GitHub releases or reputable and verified package repositories.
    • Checksum Verification: Always verify the SHA256 checksum of downloaded tini binaries against the checksums provided by the official tini project to ensure integrity and authenticity.
    • Secure Container Image Build Pipeline: Implement robust security measures in the container image build pipeline to prevent the introduction of compromised dependencies. Use trusted base images and verify all external components.
    • Build Tini from Source (Advanced): For highly sensitive environments, consider building tini from source code directly from the official tini GitHub repository. Verify the source code integrity and build process to minimize supply chain risks.

Attack Surface: Denial of Service due to Tini Vulnerabilities

  • Description: Vulnerabilities within tini's code, specifically in areas like signal handling or process management, could be exploited to cause tini to crash or become unresponsive, leading to a denial of service for the entire containerized application.
  • Tini Contribution: As the init process, tini's stability is crucial for the container's operation. If tini fails, the containerized application will also fail. Vulnerabilities in tini directly impact the availability of the application.
  • Example: A bug in tini's signal handling logic is discovered. An attacker crafts a specific sequence of signals sent to the container that triggers this bug in tini, causing it to crash. Because tini is PID 1, its crash terminates the entire container, resulting in a denial of service for the application.
  • Impact: Application downtime, service disruption, potential data loss if the application cannot gracefully shut down due to tini failure.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Keep Tini Updated: Regularly update tini to the latest version to benefit from bug fixes and stability improvements that address potential denial of service vulnerabilities.
    • Thorough Testing and Validation: While not directly for developers using tini, the tini project itself should prioritize thorough testing and validation, especially for signal handling and process management logic, to minimize the risk of DoS vulnerabilities.
    • Resource Limits for Containers (Indirect Mitigation): While not preventing tini crashes, implementing resource limits for containers can help contain the impact of certain types of DoS attacks and potentially improve overall container stability in resource-constrained environments.