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threat-modeling.md

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Threat Model Analysis for ipfs/go-ipfs

Threat: Content Poisoning / CID Spoofing

  • Description: An attacker injects malicious content into the IPFS network and associates it with a legitimate CID or spoofs a CID to point to malicious content. When an application requests content by CID, it may retrieve and use the malicious data.
  • Impact: Application processes malicious content, leading to data corruption, malfunction, or security breaches for users.
  • Affected go-ipfs component: Content Routing (DHT, Bitswap), Content Addressing (CID resolution)
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Content Verification (application-level checksums, signatures).
    • Trusted Sources (limit content retrieval to known peers/services).
    • Content Signing (implement digital signatures for content).
    • Content Auditing (regularly check content integrity).

Threat: Data Leakage through Public IPFS Network

  • Description: Sensitive data is stored unencrypted on the public IPFS network. Anyone with the CID can access this data.
  • Impact: Unauthorized access to sensitive data, privacy violations, regulatory non-compliance.
  • Affected go-ipfs component: Public IPFS Network (default configuration), Data Publishing
  • Risk Severity: Critical
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Encryption before IPFS (encrypt data before adding to IPFS).
    • Private IPFS Networks (use private networks for sensitive data).
    • Access Control Lists (explore IPNS with access control or application-level ACLs).
    • Metadata Privacy (minimize sensitive metadata).

Threat: Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks on IPFS Node

  • Description: Attacker floods the go-ipfs node with requests, overwhelming resources and making it unresponsive.
  • Impact: Application unavailability, disruption of services relying on IPFS data.
  • Affected go-ipfs component: Networking stack (libp2p), Request Handling
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Rate Limiting (limit requests from single IPs/peers).
    • Resource Limits (configure max connections, memory usage).
    • Firewall and Network Security (filter malicious traffic).
    • IPFS Cluster (redundancy with multiple nodes).
    • Peer Reputation and Blocking (block malicious peers).

Threat: Vulnerabilities in go-ipfs Core Codebase

  • Description: Security vulnerabilities exist in the go-ipfs core code, which attackers can exploit to compromise the node or application.
  • Impact: Wide range of impacts: remote code execution, data breaches, denial of service, etc.
  • Affected go-ipfs component: go-ipfs Core (various modules and functions)
  • Risk Severity: Critical (depending on vulnerability)
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Regular go-ipfs Updates (apply security patches promptly).
    • Security Monitoring and Alerts (monitor for security advisories).
    • Security Audits (conduct periodic security reviews).
    • Use Stable Versions (use well-tested go-ipfs versions).

Threat: Vulnerabilities in go-ipfs Dependencies

  • Description: Vulnerabilities in third-party libraries used by go-ipfs indirectly affect the security of the node and application.
  • Impact: Similar to core vulnerabilities: data breaches, denial of service, etc.
  • Affected go-ipfs component: Dependencies (indirectly affects go-ipfs)
  • Risk Severity: High (depending on vulnerability)
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Dependency Scanning and Management (use tools to find vulnerabilities).
    • Keep Dependencies Updated (update go-ipfs dependencies).
    • Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (continuous dependency monitoring).
    • Vendor Security Advisories (monitor dependency vendor advisories).