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attack-surface.md

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Attack Surface Analysis for knative/community

Attack Surface: 1. Accidental Exposure of Sensitive Information

  • Description: Unintentional disclosure of secrets, credentials, internal infrastructure details, or pre-release vulnerability information within the repository's content (issues, PRs, documentation, discussions).
  • How Community Contributes: Community members may inadvertently include sensitive data in bug reports, feature requests, example configurations, or troubleshooting discussions. The open nature of the repository makes this information publicly accessible.
  • Example: A user posts a debugging log containing an API key or a database connection string to a public issue.
  • Impact: Compromise of Knative deployments, data breaches, unauthorized access to internal systems, or exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities.
  • Risk Severity: Critical
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Developer/User Actions:
      • Sanitize all data before posting it publicly. Remove any sensitive information (credentials, IPs, internal URLs, etc.).
      • Use private channels (e.g., Knative Slack's security channel, direct messages) for discussing sensitive issues.
      • Review all contributions carefully before submitting them.
    • Community/Maintainer Actions:
      • Implement and enforce strict guidelines on what information can be shared publicly.
      • Use automated scanning tools (e.g., git-secrets, GitHub secret scanning) to detect and prevent accidental commits of secrets.
      • Provide security awareness training to contributors.
      • Maintain a clear vulnerability disclosure process.
      • Regularly audit the repository content for sensitive information.

Attack Surface: 2. Insecure Example Configurations or Guidance

  • Description: Example configurations, deployment guides, or tutorials within the repository that, if used without modification, lead to insecure deployments.
  • How Community Contributes: Examples are often simplified for clarity, potentially omitting crucial security settings. Community-contributed examples may not undergo rigorous security review.
  • Example: An example Knative service configuration that disables authentication to make it easier to understand, but is then directly copied into a production environment.
  • Impact: Unauthorized access to Knative services, data breaches, denial-of-service attacks.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Developer/User Actions:
      • Never use example configurations directly in production without thorough review and customization.
      • Understand the security implications of each configuration option.
    • Community/Maintainer Actions:
      • Provide secure-by-default example configurations.
      • Clearly label examples as "for demonstration only" and not production-ready.
      • Include explicit warnings about the security implications of disabling security features.
      • Prioritize security review of example configurations.

Attack Surface: 3. Compromised Contributor Accounts

  • Description: An attacker gaining control of a contributor's GitHub account and using it to inject malicious content into the repository (documentation, discussions, or linked resources).
  • How Community Contributes: The risk is inherent in any open-source project with multiple contributors. A larger community increases the number of potential targets.
  • Example: An attacker compromises a contributor's account and modifies a documentation page to include a link to a phishing site or a malicious script.
  • Impact: Users may be tricked into downloading malware, providing credentials, or following insecure instructions, leading to compromised systems.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Developer/User Actions:
      • Be cautious of unexpected changes or suspicious links in the repository.
      • Report any suspicious activity to the Knative security team.
    • Community/Maintainer Actions:
      • Require two-factor authentication (2FA) for all contributors.
      • Implement branch protection rules to prevent unauthorized changes to main branches.
      • Regularly audit commit history for suspicious activity.
      • Establish a process for quickly responding to and recovering from compromised accounts.
      • Encourage contributors to use strong, unique passwords.