attack-tree.md

Attack Tree Analysis for boostorg/boost

Objective: To achieve Remote Code Execution (RCE) or Denial of Service (DoS) on an application utilizing Boost libraries.

Attack Tree Visualization

                                     [Attacker Goal: RCE or DoS via Boost]
                                                    |
                                     ------------------------------------
                                     |                                  |
                      [Exploit Vulnerabilities in Boost]       [Abuse Legitimate Boost Functionality]
                                     |                                  |
            -----------------------------------------------------      -----------------------------------
            |                  |                  |                  |      |                         |
[Serialization Flaws]       [Asio Flaws]       {Regex Flaws}    {Filesystem Flaws}      [Spirit Flaws] [Other Library Flaws]
            |                  |                  |                  |
    -----------------   -----------------   -----------------   -----------------
    |       |          |                  |                  |
[[UAF]] [[OOB]]   [[Buffer]]            {DoS}             [[Path]]        {DoS}
[in  ] [Read]   [Overflow]            {via}             {Traver.}       {via}
[Ser.] [Ser.]   {in Asio}             {Regex}            {in FS}         {Long}
                                                                        {Paths}

Attack Tree Path: Serialization Flaws: UAF in Serialization

• Critical Node: [[UAF in Serialization]]
  • Description: Use-After-Free vulnerability within Boost.Serialization. An attacker crafts a malicious serialized object that, when deserialized, causes the application to access memory that has already been freed.
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: High (RCE)
  • Effort: Medium
  • Skill Level: Intermediate
  • Detection Difficulty: Medium
  • Mitigation:
    • Do not deserialize untrusted data.
    • Use a whitelist of allowed types for deserialization.
    • Perform rigorous validation before deserialization.
    • Consider using a safer serialization format.
    • Keep Boost.Serialization updated.
    • Fuzz test the deserialization process.

Attack Tree Path: Serialization Flaws: OOB Read in Serialization

• Critical Node: [[OOB Read in Serialization]]
  • Description: Out-of-Bounds Read vulnerability within Boost.Serialization. A crafted serialized object causes the application to read data outside the allocated memory bounds during deserialization.
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: Medium-High (Data Leak, Crash, potentially RCE)
  • Effort: Medium
  • Skill Level: Intermediate
  • Detection Difficulty: Medium
  • Mitigation:
    • Do not deserialize untrusted data.
    • Use a whitelist of allowed types for deserialization.
    • Perform rigorous validation before deserialization.
    • Consider using a safer serialization format.
    • Keep Boost.Serialization updated.
    • Fuzz test the deserialization process.

Attack Tree Path: Asio Flaws: Buffer Overflow in Asio

• Critical Node: [[Buffer Overflow in Asio]]
  • Description: A buffer overflow vulnerability in Boost.Asio, typically occurring due to incorrect handling of buffers in asynchronous operations (e.g., reading from a socket).
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: High (RCE)
  • Effort: Medium
  • Skill Level: Intermediate
  • Detection Difficulty: Medium
  • Mitigation:
    • Use asio::streambuf or other safe buffer handling mechanisms.
    • Strictly validate input sizes.
    • Set reasonable timeouts for asynchronous operations.
    • Minimize shared mutable state.
    • Thorough code review of Asio-related code.

Attack Tree Path: Regex Flaws: DoS via Regex (ReDoS)

• High-Risk Path: {[Regex Flaws] -> {DoS via Regex (ReDoS)}}
• Node: {DoS via Regex (ReDoS)}
  • Description: Denial of Service via Regular Expression Denial of Service. An attacker crafts a regular expression (an "evil regex") that takes an extremely long time to evaluate on certain inputs, causing the application to become unresponsive.
  • Likelihood: High
  • Impact: Medium (DoS)
  • Effort: Low
  • Skill Level: Novice
  • Detection Difficulty: Easy
  • Mitigation:
    • Avoid complex, nested quantifiers in regular expressions.
    • Use a regex analysis tool (e.g., rxxr).
    • Set resource limits (time and memory) for regex evaluation.
    • Validate input before applying regular expressions.

Attack Tree Path: Filesystem Flaws: Path Traversal in Filesystem

• High-Risk Path: {[Filesystem Flaws] -> [[Path Traversal in Filesystem]]}
• Critical Node: [[Path Traversal in Filesystem]]
  • Description: Path Traversal vulnerability in Boost.Filesystem. An attacker uses "../" or similar sequences in user-supplied input to access files outside the intended directory.
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: High (Unauthorized File Access, potentially RCE)
  • Effort: Low
  • Skill Level: Intermediate
  • Detection Difficulty: Medium
  • Mitigation:
    • Thoroughly sanitize file paths received from user input.
    • Use boost::filesystem::canonical() to resolve symbolic links and remove ".." components.
    • Avoid creating temporary files in predictable locations.
    • Run the application with the least necessary privileges.

Attack Tree Path: Filesystem Flaws: DoS via Long Paths

• High-Risk Path: {[Filesystem Flaws] -> {DoS via Long Paths}}
• Node: {DoS via Long Paths}
  • Description: Denial of Service via Long Paths. An attacker provides excessively long file paths, causing resource exhaustion or crashes, particularly on Windows systems.
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: Medium (DoS)
  • Effort: Low
  • Skill Level: Novice
  • Detection Difficulty: Easy
  • Mitigation:
    • Enforce limits on the length of file paths.
    • Validate and sanitize file path input.