Attack Surface: Unencrypted Network Communication
- Description: Data transmitted between NSQ components and clients is sent in plaintext without encryption, making it vulnerable to eavesdropping.
- NSQ Contribution: NSQ, by default, does not enforce encryption and requires explicit configuration to enable TLS/SSL.
- Example: An attacker intercepts network traffic between a producer and nsqd, reading sensitive data within the message payload.
- Impact: Confidentiality breach, data leakage, potential compliance violations.
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Enable TLS/SSL: Configure TLS/SSL encryption for all NSQ communication channels (nsqd to clients, nsqd to nsqlookupd, nsqadmin access).
- Use Strong Cipher Suites: Ensure strong and up-to-date cipher suites are configured for TLS/SSL.
- Network Segmentation: Isolate NSQ components within a trusted network segment.
Attack Surface: Unauthenticated Access to NSQ Components
- Description: NSQ components are accessible without authentication, allowing unauthorized interaction and control.
- NSQ Contribution: Historically, NSQ lacked built-in authentication by default. While client certificate authentication is now available, it requires explicit configuration.
- Example: An attacker gains network access to nsqd and uses the HTTP API to delete topics, pause channels, or retrieve sensitive metrics, causing disruption or information disclosure.
- Impact: Unauthorized access, data manipulation, denial of service, information disclosure, potential cluster compromise.
- Risk Severity: Critical
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Implement Client Certificate Authentication: Enable and enforce client certificate authentication for clients connecting to nsqd.
- Secure nsqadmin Access: Implement strong authentication and authorization for nsqadmin. Restrict access to internal networks.
- Network Access Control Lists (ACLs): Use firewalls and network ACLs to restrict access to NSQ ports to authorized networks.
Attack Surface: Message Payload Injection
- Description: Malicious data injected into message payloads published to NSQ can be processed by consumers, leading to vulnerabilities in consuming applications.
- NSQ Contribution: NSQ is message-agnostic and does not validate message content, making it a conduit for potentially malicious payloads.
- Example: A producer injects a message with a command injection payload. A vulnerable consumer application, upon processing this message, executes the injected command.
- Impact: Command injection, SQL injection, cross-site scripting in consumers, application logic bypass, data corruption.
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Input Validation and Sanitization (Producers): Producers must rigorously validate and sanitize data before publishing it to NSQ.
- Input Validation and Sanitization (Consumers): Consumers must also validate and sanitize message payloads received from NSQ before processing them, treating them as untrusted input.
Attack Surface: Insecure nsqadmin Exposure
- Description: nsqadmin is exposed to public networks without proper authentication, allowing unauthorized access to NSQ cluster monitoring and management.
- NSQ Contribution: nsqadmin is a component of NSQ providing administrative access, and default configurations might not secure it for public exposure.
- Example: An attacker accesses a publicly exposed nsqadmin instance and gains insights into message flow, cluster status, and potentially performs administrative actions.
- Impact: Information disclosure, unauthorized cluster management, denial of service, potential compromise of the NSQ cluster.
- Risk Severity: High
- Mitigation Strategies:
- Restrict nsqadmin Access: Never expose nsqadmin directly to the public internet. Restrict access to internal management networks only.
- Implement Strong Authentication and Authorization (nsqadmin): Use strong authentication for nsqadmin. Consider a reverse proxy or NSQ's built-in HTTP basic auth if suitable.
- Regular Security Audits (nsqadmin): Regularly audit nsqadmin configurations and access logs.