attack-tree.md

Attack Tree Analysis for nsqio/nsq

Objective: Disrupt Application or Exfiltrate Sensitive Data {CRITICAL NODE}

Attack Tree Visualization

                                 +-------------------------------------------------+
                                 | Disrupt Application or Exfiltrate Sensitive Data | {CRITICAL NODE}
                                 +-------------------------------------------------+
                                                 |
   +--------------------------------+--------------------------------+--------------------------------+
   |                                |                                |                                |

+------+------+ +------+------+ +------+------+ | DoS via | [HIGH RISK] | Message | [HIGH RISK] | NSQLookupd| [HIGH RISK] | NSQ | | Tampering | | Exploit | +------+------+ +------+------+ +------+------+ | | | | | | +------+------+ +------+------+ +------+------+ | Resource | [HIGH RISK] | Modify | [HIGH RISK] | Spoof | [HIGH RISK] | Exhaustion| | Messages | | Lookupd | +------+------+ +------+------+ +------+------+ | | | +------+------+ +------+------+ +------+------+ | Flood | [HIGH RISK] | Inject | [HIGH RISK] | Return | [HIGH RISK] | Topics | | Malicious| | Fake | +------+------+ | Payloads | | NSQD | | | | Addresses| +------+------+ +------+------+ +------+------+ | | +------+------+
| Flood | [HIGH RISK]
| Channels | +------+------+ | +------+------+ | Slow | [HIGH RISK] | Consumers| +------+------+ | +------+------+ | Flood with | [HIGH RISK] | Large Msgs| +------+------+

Attack Tree Path: 1. DoS via NSQ [HIGH RISK]

• Goal: Render the application unavailable by overwhelming the NSQ infrastructure.
• Sub-Goal: Resource Exhaustion [HIGH RISK]
  • Attack Vector: Flood Topics [HIGH RISK]
    • Description: Create an excessive number of topics, exceeding the system's or application's capacity to handle them. NSQ does not enforce limits on topic creation by default.
    • Likelihood: Medium
    • Impact: High
    • Effort: Low
    • Skill Level: Novice
    • Detection Difficulty: Medium
    • Mitigation: Implement application-level limits on topic creation. Monitor topic counts.
  • Attack Vector: Flood Channels [HIGH RISK]
    • Description: Create an excessive number of channels within topics, similar to topic flooding. NSQ does not enforce limits on channel creation by default.
    • Likelihood: Medium
    • Impact: High
    • Effort: Low
    • Skill Level: Novice
    • Detection Difficulty: Medium
    • Mitigation: Implement application-level limits on channel creation. Monitor channel counts.
  • Attack Vector: Slow Consumers [HIGH RISK]
    • Description: Intentionally slow down message consumption, causing a backlog of messages in NSQD and potentially leading to resource exhaustion (memory, disk).
    • Likelihood: Medium
    • Impact: High
    • Effort: Medium
    • Skill Level: Intermediate
    • Detection Difficulty: Medium
    • Mitigation: Monitor consumer lag. Implement timeouts and error handling for slow consumers. Use nsqadmin. Consider auto-scaling.
  • Attack Vector: Flood with Large Messages [HIGH RISK]
    • Description: Send messages that are excessively large, consuming network bandwidth and memory on nsqd instances.
    • Likelihood: Medium (if no size limits) / Low (if size limits are enforced)
    • Impact: High
    • Effort: Low
    • Skill Level: Novice
    • Detection Difficulty: Medium
    • Mitigation: Enforce maximum message size limits using the --max-msg-size flag on nsqd.

Attack Tree Path: 2. Message Tampering [HIGH RISK]

• Goal: Modify or inject messages to disrupt application logic or exfiltrate data.
• Sub-Goal: Modify Messages [HIGH RISK]
  • Attack Vector: Intercept and alter the content of messages in transit. Highly effective if TLS is not used.
  • Likelihood: Low (with TLS) / High (without TLS)
  • Impact: Very High
  • Effort: Low (without TLS) / High (with TLS)
  • Skill Level: Intermediate (without TLS) / Expert (with TLS)
  • Detection Difficulty: Hard (without TLS or message signing) / Very Hard (with TLS and message signing)
  • Mitigation: Always use TLS encryption for all NSQ connections.
• Sub-Goal: Inject Malicious Payloads [HIGH RISK]
  • Attack Vector: Send messages with crafted content designed to exploit vulnerabilities in the consumer application (e.g., SQL injection, command injection).
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: Very High
  • Effort: Medium to High
  • Skill Level: Intermediate to Advanced
  • Detection Difficulty: Hard
  • Mitigation: Thoroughly validate and sanitize all message data in the consumer application. Treat message content as untrusted input.

Attack Tree Path: 3. NSQLookupd Exploit

• Goal: Compromise nsqlookupd to disrupt service discovery or redirect clients.
• Sub-Goal: Spoof Lookupd [HIGH RISK]
  • Attack Vector: Run a rogue nsqlookupd instance that provides incorrect information (e.g., addresses of malicious nsqd nodes) to clients.
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: High
  • Effort: Low
  • Skill Level: Intermediate
  • Detection Difficulty: Medium
  • Mitigation: Use TLS. Configure clients to connect to specific, trusted nsqlookupd instances.
• Sub-Goal: Return Fake NSQD Addresses [HIGH RISK]
  • Attack Vector: Compromise a legitimate nsqlookupd instance to return the addresses of malicious nsqd nodes.
  • Likelihood: Low
  • Impact: Very High
  • Effort: High
  • Skill Level: Advanced
  • Detection Difficulty: Hard
  • Mitigation: Use TLS. Restrict network access to nsqlookupd. Monitor logs.