threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for labstack/echo

Threat: Input Binding Bypass and Critical Data Manipulation

Description: An attacker crafts malicious requests to exploit vulnerabilities or weaknesses in Echo's data binding mechanisms (e.g., JSON, XML, form data binding) to inject critical data. By bypassing input validation, they can manipulate application state, database records, or business logic in a significant way. This could involve injecting data that leads to unauthorized financial transactions, privilege escalation, or data corruption affecting core application functionality. Impact:

• Critical Data Corruption or Manipulation: Core application data integrity is compromised.
• Severe Business Logic Flaws: Attackers can manipulate critical business processes.
• Unauthorized Financial Transactions or Data Breaches: Direct financial loss or exposure of highly sensitive data.
• Privilege Escalation to Administrative Levels: Attackers gain full control over the application. Affected Echo Component: echo.Context's data binding functions (e.g., Bind, BindJSON, BindXML, BindURI, BindQuery, BindHeader). Risk Severity: Critical Mitigation Strategies:
• Mandatory and Robust Validation After Data Binding: Implement strict and comprehensive validation of all bound data within handler functions. This validation must go beyond basic type checks and enforce business logic constraints.
• Utilize Strong Data Type Definitions and Validation Libraries: Employ Go struct tags for validation (e.g., binding:"required", validate:"email") and integrate with robust validation libraries to define complex validation rules.
• Implement Input Sanitization and Normalization: Cleanse and normalize input data after binding, especially before using it in critical operations like database updates or security decisions.
• Regularly Update Echo and Dependencies with Security Patches: Maintain Echo and all dependencies at the latest versions to patch known binding vulnerabilities promptly.

Threat: Route Confusion Leading to Unauthorized Access and Privilege Escalation

Description: Attackers exploit ambiguities or overlaps in complex Echo route configurations to bypass intended access controls. By crafting specific URLs, they can trick Echo into routing requests to sensitive handlers they should not be able to access. This could lead to unauthorized access to administrative panels, internal APIs, or critical functionalities, potentially resulting in privilege escalation to administrative roles. Impact:

• Complete Bypass of Route-Based Access Controls: Security measures based on routing are rendered ineffective.
• Unauthorized Access to Administrative Functionality: Attackers gain access to privileged operations.
• Privilege Escalation to Administrator or Superuser Roles: Full control over the application and potentially underlying systems.
• Severe Data Breaches and System Compromise: Exposure of highly sensitive data and potential takeover of the application. Affected Echo Component: echo.Router, echo.Echo's routing mechanism, route definition logic. Risk Severity: High Mitigation Strategies:
• Rigorous Route Definition Review and Simplification: Thoroughly review all route definitions to eliminate ambiguities and overlaps. Simplify routing configurations where possible to reduce complexity.
• Prioritize Specific Routes and Implement Explicit Deny Rules: Ensure more specific routes are defined first and consider implementing explicit deny rules for sensitive paths to prevent unintended matching.
• Comprehensive Routing Testing and Security Audits: Conduct extensive testing of all routes, including negative testing, to identify and eliminate any routing vulnerabilities. Perform regular security audits of route configurations.
• Enforce Robust Authorization Within Handlers, Independent of Routing: Implement strong authorization checks inside each handler function to verify user permissions regardless of the route taken. Do not solely rely on routing for security.

Threat: Custom Authentication/Authorization Middleware Bypass - Critical Access Control Failure

Description: Vulnerabilities in custom-developed authentication or authorization middleware within Echo applications lead to a complete failure of access control. Attackers can bypass authentication entirely or circumvent authorization checks, gaining unrestricted access to protected resources and functionalities. This could stem from logic flaws, insecure coding practices, or misconfigurations within the custom middleware. Impact:

• Complete Authentication Bypass: Anyone can access the application without valid credentials.
• Full Authorization Bypass: Access controls are ineffective, granting unauthorized access to all resources.
• Massive Data Breaches and System-Wide Compromise: Unrestricted access allows attackers to steal or manipulate all data and potentially take over the entire system.
• Total Loss of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability: The application's core security principles are completely violated. Affected Echo Component: Custom middleware implementations, echo.MiddlewareFunc, echo.Group middleware application, specifically authentication and authorization middleware. Risk Severity: Critical Mitigation Strategies:
• Mandatory Security Review and Penetration Testing of Custom Middleware: Subject all custom middleware, especially authentication and authorization components, to rigorous security reviews and penetration testing by security experts.
• Adopt Established and Well-Vetted Security Libraries: Prioritize using established, reputable, and actively maintained security libraries for authentication (e.g., JWT, OAuth 2.0) and authorization instead of developing custom solutions from scratch.
• Follow Security Best Practices and Secure Coding Principles: Adhere to strict security coding standards and best practices during middleware development. Avoid common security pitfalls like hardcoding secrets or implementing flawed cryptographic logic.
• Implement Multi-Factor Authentication and Principle of Least Privilege: Enhance authentication security with MFA and enforce the principle of least privilege in authorization policies to minimize the impact of potential bypass vulnerabilities.

Threat: Information Disclosure via Error Handling in Production - Sensitive Data Exposure

Description: Improperly configured or default error handling in production Echo applications leaks sensitive information in error responses. This could include stack traces revealing internal code paths, configuration details, database connection strings, or other confidential data. Attackers can leverage this exposed information to gain a deeper understanding of the application's architecture and identify further vulnerabilities for exploitation. Impact:

• Exposure of Highly Sensitive Server-Side Information: Confidential data is directly revealed to potential attackers.
• Detailed Application Architecture Disclosure: Attackers gain insights into internal workings, aiding in targeted attacks.
• Increased Risk of Further Exploitation: Disclosed information can be used to identify and exploit more severe vulnerabilities.
• Reputational Damage and Compliance Violations: Data leaks can lead to significant reputational harm and violations of data privacy regulations. Affected Echo Component: echo.HTTPErrorHandler, default error handling mechanism. Risk Severity: High Mitigation Strategies:
• Implement Custom Error Handling for Production Environments: Completely override Echo's default error handler for production to prevent any sensitive information leakage.
• Return Generic, User-Friendly Error Messages to Clients in Production: In production, always return generic error messages to clients that do not reveal any technical details.
• Securely Log Detailed Errors for Debugging and Monitoring: Log comprehensive error information (including stack traces) for internal debugging and monitoring purposes, but ensure these logs are stored securely and access is strictly controlled.
• Disable Debug Mode and Verbose Logging in Production: Completely disable debug mode and minimize verbose logging in production deployments to reduce the risk of accidental information exposure.

Threat: Denial of Service through Resource Exhaustion via Large Request Bodies

Description: Attackers exploit Echo's data binding by sending extremely large or complex request bodies. This can overwhelm the server, consuming excessive CPU, memory, and network bandwidth during the data binding process, leading to a Denial of Service. The attack aims to exhaust server resources, making the application unresponsive to legitimate users. Impact:

• Complete Service Disruption and Unavailability: The application becomes unusable for legitimate users.
• Server Overload and Performance Degradation: Server resources are exhausted, impacting the performance of other services on the same infrastructure.
• Potential Application Crashes and Instability: Resource exhaustion can lead to application crashes and system instability.
• Business Disruption and Financial Losses: Service outages can cause significant business disruption and financial losses. Affected Echo Component: echo.Context's data binding functions, request body handling, potentially middleware processing large requests. Risk Severity: High Mitigation Strategies:
• Enforce Strict Request Body Size Limits: Implement and enforce maximum request body size limits at the server or framework level to prevent excessively large requests from being processed.
• Utilize Streaming Request Body Processing for Large Data: When handling large data uploads, employ streaming request body processing to avoid loading the entire request into memory at once.
• Implement Resource Monitoring, Alerting, and Auto-Scaling: Continuously monitor server resource usage (CPU, memory, network) and set up alerts to detect potential DoS attacks. Implement auto-scaling to dynamically adjust resources based on traffic and load.
• Employ Rate Limiting and Traffic Shaping at Infrastructure Level: Implement rate limiting and traffic shaping at the infrastructure level (e.g., load balancers, firewalls) to mitigate DoS attacks by limiting the rate of incoming requests.