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attack-surface.md

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Attack Surface Analysis for apache/couchdb

Attack Surface: Unauthenticated Administrative Access (Admin Party)

  • Description: Gaining full administrative control over the CouchDB instance without requiring authentication.
  • How CouchDB Contributes: Historically (pre-3.0), CouchDB shipped with a default configuration that allowed unauthenticated administrative access ("admin party"). While mitigated in newer versions, misconfiguration or failure to set an admin password immediately upon installation leaves this vulnerability open. This is a direct CouchDB configuration issue.
  • Example: An attacker accesses http://<couchdb-ip>:5984/_utils/ and finds they can create databases, users, and modify data without any credentials.
  • Impact: Complete compromise of the database, including data theft, modification, deletion, and potential server compromise.
  • Risk Severity: Critical
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Immediate Admin Setup: During initial CouchDB setup, immediately create a strong administrator password. Do not skip this step.
    • Configuration Verification: Regularly verify that no default admin accounts exist and that the [admins] section in the configuration file is properly populated.
    • Automated Deployment: Use configuration management tools (Ansible, Chef, Puppet, etc.) to automate the setup and ensure consistent, secure configurations.

Attack Surface: Weak or Default Credentials (for Admin Accounts)

  • Description: Using easily guessable, default, or weak passwords for CouchDB administrator accounts. (Focusing on admin accounts elevates this to High risk).
  • How CouchDB Contributes: CouchDB relies on user-defined passwords for authentication. If the administrator uses weak passwords or defaults are not changed, the entire database is vulnerable. This is a direct consequence of how CouchDB handles authentication.
  • Example: An attacker successfully logs in using the username "admin" and password "password".
  • Impact: Complete compromise of the database, with full administrative privileges.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Strong Password Policies: Enforce strong password policies (minimum length, complexity requirements, regular password changes) specifically for the administrator account.
    • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Implement MFA, ideally through a reverse proxy, to add an extra layer of security for the administrator login.
    • No Default Passwords: Ensure that any deployment scripts or automated processes never use default passwords for the administrator.

Attack Surface: JavaScript Code Injection in Design Documents

  • Description: Injecting malicious JavaScript code into CouchDB design documents (views, shows, lists, validation functions) to execute arbitrary code within the CouchDB JavaScript context.
  • How CouchDB Contributes: CouchDB's core functionality, specifically its use of JavaScript for views and data processing, directly creates this vulnerability. This is inherent to CouchDB's design.
  • Example: An attacker submits a document with a field containing malicious JavaScript code. When a view function processes this field, the injected code executes, potentially stealing data or modifying other documents.
  • Impact: Remote code execution (within the CouchDB JavaScript sandbox), data exfiltration, data modification, denial of service. The sandbox limits the impact to the CouchDB instance itself, but data compromise is highly likely.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Strict Input Validation: Rigorously validate all user-supplied data before it's used in any JavaScript function within a design document. Use a whitelist approach.
    • Output Encoding: Encode output from JavaScript functions to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities.
    • Code Review: Conduct thorough code reviews of all design documents.
    • Least Privilege: Ensure design document functions execute with minimum necessary permissions.
    • Avoid Dynamic Code: Minimize or completely avoid using eval() or similar functions.
    • Content Security Policy (CSP): If CouchDB data is accessed via web application, use CSP.

Attack Surface: Unauthorized Replication

  • Description: Initiating unauthorized replication of data to or from a CouchDB instance.
  • How CouchDB Contributes: CouchDB's built-in replication feature is the direct source of this vulnerability. Misconfiguration or lack of authentication on replication endpoints exposes this risk.
  • Example: An attacker with write access to one CouchDB instance initiates replication to a target instance they control, effectively stealing the data.
  • Impact: Data exfiltration, data modification, potential denial of service.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Authentication and Authorization: Strictly require authentication and authorization for all replication operations.
    • Network Restrictions: Use firewall rules to restrict access to CouchDB instances to only trusted sources.
    • Replication Filters: Use replication filters to control which documents are replicated.
    • Monitoring: Monitor replication activity for anomalies.