threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for gorilla/websocket

Threat: Command Injection via Websocket Message

• Description: An attacker crafts malicious websocket messages containing commands that are executed by the server. This occurs when the application improperly processes message content and uses it to construct system commands or database queries without sufficient sanitization. The attacker exploits the websocket channel to inject these commands.
• Impact: Full server compromise, unauthorized data access and manipulation, data breaches, denial of service, remote code execution.
• Affected Component: Server-side application logic processing websocket messages, specifically command execution or database interaction modules.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Avoid constructing system commands or database queries directly from websocket message content.
  • Utilize parameterized queries or prepared statements for database interactions.
  • Implement strict input sanitization and validation on all websocket message data before using it in any command execution context.
  • Apply the principle of least privilege to server processes, limiting the impact of successful command injection.

Threat: Websocket Denial of Service (DoS) - Message Flood

• Description: An attacker floods the websocket endpoint with a large volume of messages, overwhelming the server's resources. This can be achieved by sending numerous small messages or fewer very large messages through the websocket connection, exhausting CPU, memory, and network bandwidth.
• Impact: Application unavailability, service disruption for legitimate users, server resource exhaustion, potential infrastructure instability.
• Affected Component: Websocket server endpoint, gorilla/websocket connection handling, server network and processing resources.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement rate limiting on incoming websocket messages per connection and globally.
  • Set maximum message size limits to prevent processing of excessively large messages.
  • Employ connection limits to restrict the number of concurrent connections from a single source IP address.
  • Utilize resource monitoring and alerting to detect and respond to DoS attacks in real-time.
  • Implement connection timeouts to automatically close inactive or abusive connections.

Threat: Weak Websocket Authentication

• Description: An attacker exploits weak or missing authentication mechanisms to establish unauthorized websocket connections. This can involve bypassing authentication entirely, brute-forcing weak credentials used for websocket authentication, or exploiting vulnerabilities in the websocket handshake authentication process itself.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to application functionality and data via websocket, data breaches, data manipulation, potential account takeover if websocket is used for session management.
• Affected Component: Websocket handshake process, authentication module specifically designed for websocket connections, session management related to websockets.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement robust authentication specifically for websocket connections, independent of or strongly tied to HTTP session authentication.
  • Use strong, unique, and unpredictable authentication tokens or credentials for websocket connections.
  • Avoid relying solely on HTTP session cookies for websocket authentication without proper validation and Cross-Site WebSocket Hijacking (CSWSH) protection.
  • Consider using established authentication protocols suitable for websockets (e.g., token-based authentication, OAuth 2.0 flows adapted for websockets).
  • Implement multi-factor authentication for sensitive websocket operations.

Threat: Insufficient Websocket Authorization

• Description: An attacker, having established a websocket connection (potentially legitimately or illegitimately due to weak authentication), exploits insufficient authorization controls to perform actions or access data beyond their intended privileges. This occurs when authorization checks are not properly implemented or enforced for actions performed over the websocket after the initial connection.
• Impact: Privilege escalation, unauthorized access to sensitive data and functionalities via websocket, data manipulation, security breaches, circumvention of intended access controls.
• Affected Component: Server-side authorization logic governing websocket actions and data access, access control mechanisms within websocket message handlers.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement fine-grained authorization controls for all actions and data access performed through the websocket.
  • Perform authorization checks for every significant message or action received over the websocket, not just during connection establishment.
  • Utilize role-based access control (RBAC) or attribute-based access control (ABAC) to manage permissions for websocket interactions.
  • Regularly review and update authorization policies to ensure they are comprehensive and effective for websocket operations.

Threat: Cross-Site WebSocket Hijacking (CSWSH)

• Description: An attacker hosts a malicious website that tricks a user's browser into initiating a websocket connection to a legitimate application while the user is authenticated. The malicious website can then send and receive messages through this hijacked websocket connection, effectively impersonating the user and performing actions on their behalf.
• Impact: Unauthorized actions performed in the user's context via websocket, data manipulation, potential account takeover, circumvention of intended user actions and permissions.
• Affected Component: Websocket handshake process, server-side origin validation (or lack thereof), reliance on cookie-based authentication without CSWSH protection for websockets.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement robust anti-CSWSH protection mechanisms.
  • Validate the Origin header during the websocket handshake to ensure connections originate from expected domains.
  • Utilize synchronizer tokens (CSRF tokens) adapted for websocket handshakes or initial messages to verify the legitimacy of the connection origin.
  • Consider using dedicated websocket authentication tokens instead of solely relying on session cookies, or implement strict cookie handling and validation for websocket authentication.

Threat: Resource Exhaustion - Unclosed Websocket Connections

• Description: Failure to properly close websocket connections when clients disconnect or sessions expire leads to resource leaks on the server. An attacker can exploit this by repeatedly establishing websocket connections and then abruptly disconnecting without proper closure, causing a gradual depletion of server resources (memory, file descriptors, threads) and eventually leading to a denial of service.
• Impact: Server resource exhaustion, denial of service, application instability, potential server crash.
• Affected Component: Server-side connection management, connection closing logic within gorilla/websocket handlers, operating system resource management.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement robust connection closing logic to handle client disconnections gracefully and server-side session timeouts effectively.
  • Utilize heartbeat mechanisms (ping/pong frames) to proactively detect dead or inactive connections and close them automatically.
  • Implement server-side connection timeouts to automatically close idle websocket connections after a period of inactivity.
  • Monitor resource usage related to websocket connections and set up alerts to detect potential resource leaks or excessive connection accumulation.

Threat: Vulnerable gorilla/websocket Library

• Description: An attacker exploits known security vulnerabilities present in an outdated or vulnerable version of the gorilla/websocket library used by the application. This requires the existence of publicly disclosed vulnerabilities in the library that the application is susceptible to due to not being updated.
• Impact: Depends on the specific vulnerability; could range from denial of service and information disclosure to remote code execution on the server.
• Affected Component: gorilla/websocket library dependency, underlying websocket handling mechanisms.
• Risk Severity: Varies (Critical if Remote Code Execution vulnerability exists, High for Denial of Service or significant data breach vulnerabilities).
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Maintain an up-to-date version of the gorilla/websocket library and all other application dependencies.
  • Actively monitor security advisories and vulnerability databases for reported issues in gorilla/websocket and its dependencies.
  • Implement a robust dependency management strategy to ensure timely updates and patching of vulnerabilities in the gorilla/websocket library.