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Mitigation Strategies Analysis for open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector

Mitigation Strategy: Input Validation and Sanitization at Receivers

  • Mitigation Strategy: Implement Input Validation and Sanitization at Receivers.
  • Description:
    1. Identify all receiver components: Determine all receivers used in your Collector configuration (e.g., OTLP, HTTP, gRPC, Prometheus).
    2. Define expected data schemas: For each receiver, clearly define the expected schema and data types for incoming telemetry data (logs, metrics, traces).
    3. Implement validation logic: Within each receiver's processing logic (or using processors immediately after receivers), add validation steps to:
      • Check data types: Ensure incoming data conforms to expected types (e.g., numeric values for metrics, string format for log messages).
      • Validate data ranges: Verify that values fall within acceptable ranges (e.g., metric values within reasonable bounds, string lengths within limits).
      • Sanitize string inputs: Escape or remove potentially harmful characters or code from string inputs to prevent injection attacks. This might involve encoding special characters, using allow-lists for permitted characters, or employing input sanitization processors.
      • Reject invalid data: Configure receivers to reject or discard telemetry data that fails validation checks, logging the rejection for monitoring purposes.
    4. Test validation thoroughly: Conduct thorough testing with various valid and invalid input scenarios to ensure validation logic is effective and doesn't introduce false positives or negatives.
  • List of Threats Mitigated:
    • Log Injection (High Severity): Attackers inject malicious code or commands into log messages, potentially leading to code execution or information disclosure when logs are processed or viewed.
    • Metric Injection (Medium Severity): Attackers inject fabricated or manipulated metric data, potentially skewing monitoring dashboards, triggering false alerts, or masking real issues.
    • Denial of Service (DoS) via Malformed Input (Medium Severity): Sending malformed or excessively large input data can overwhelm receiver components, leading to resource exhaustion and service disruption.
  • Impact: Significantly reduces the risk of injection attacks and moderately reduces the risk of DoS attacks related to malformed input.
  • Currently Implemented: Partially implemented. Basic data type validation might be present in some receivers by default, but comprehensive sanitization and schema enforcement are likely missing.
    • Location: Potentially within custom receiver implementations or through basic processor configurations.
  • Missing Implementation: Comprehensive validation and sanitization logic needs to be implemented within each receiver or using dedicated validation processors in the Collector pipeline. Schema validation needs to be explicitly configured and enforced.

Mitigation Strategy: Authentication and Authorization for Receiver Endpoints

  • Mitigation Strategy: Implement Authentication and Authorization for Receiver Endpoints.
  • Description:
    1. Choose an authentication method: Select an appropriate authentication method for your environment and security requirements that is supported by the Collector receivers. Options include:
      • Mutual TLS (mTLS): Requires clients to present certificates for authentication, providing strong mutual authentication. Configurable within receiver TLS settings.
      • API Keys: Clients provide a pre-shared API key in headers or query parameters. Can be implemented using extensions like apikeyauth and configured in receivers.
      • Bearer Tokens (e.g., JWT): Clients present tokens obtained from an authentication service. Can be implemented using extensions like oidcauth or custom authentication extensions and configured in receivers.
    2. Configure receivers for authentication: Configure each receiver to enforce the chosen authentication method within the Collector's configuration file. This typically involves:
      • mTLS: Configuring the receiver's tls settings to require client certificates and specifying trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs).
      • API Keys/Bearer Tokens: Configuring the receiver to use an authentication extension (like apikeyauth or oidcauth) and providing the necessary configuration for key validation or token verification.
    3. Implement authorization (if needed): If you require fine-grained access control, implement authorization logic within the Collector using processors or custom extensions to determine if an authenticated client is authorized to send telemetry data to specific receivers or endpoints. This might involve checking client roles or permissions extracted from tokens or API keys.
    4. Securely manage authentication credentials: Store and manage authentication credentials (e.g., API keys, private keys for mTLS, OIDC client secrets) securely using secret management solutions and configure the Collector to access them securely (see "Secure Secrets Management" strategy).
    5. Test authentication and authorization: Thoroughly test the configured authentication and authorization mechanisms within the Collector to ensure they are working as expected and prevent unauthorized access.
  • List of Threats Mitigated:
    • Unauthorized Data Ingestion (High Severity): Unauthenticated or unauthorized sources can inject malicious or irrelevant telemetry data into the pipeline, potentially disrupting monitoring, causing false alerts, or masking legitimate issues.
    • Data Tampering (Medium Severity): Unauthorized access could allow attackers to modify or delete telemetry data in transit or at rest if receivers are not secured.
  • Impact: Significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized data ingestion and data tampering by ensuring only authenticated and authorized sources can send telemetry data to the Collector.
  • Currently Implemented: Partially implemented. Basic TLS encryption for transport might be enabled, but authentication and authorization are likely not enforced by default for all receivers.
    • Location: TLS configuration might be present in receiver configurations.
  • Missing Implementation: Authentication mechanisms (mTLS, API Keys, Bearer Tokens) need to be explicitly configured and enabled for relevant receivers using Collector extensions and configuration. Authorization logic might need to be implemented using processors or custom extensions based on specific requirements.

Mitigation Strategy: Secure Secrets Management within Collector Configuration

  • Mitigation Strategy: Externalize and Securely Manage Secrets used in Collector Configuration.
  • Description:
    1. Identify all secrets in Collector config: Locate all secrets used in the Collector configuration files (e.g., API keys for exporters, passwords for backend systems, TLS certificates and private keys for receivers/exporters, OIDC client secrets).
    2. Choose a secret management solution: Select a secure secret management solution suitable for your environment (e.g., HashiCorp Vault, Kubernetes Secrets, cloud provider secret managers, environment variables with restricted access). The Collector supports various secret providers or mechanisms to access external secrets.
    3. Migrate secrets to the chosen solution: Move all identified secrets from direct embedding in configuration files to the chosen secret management solution.
    4. Configure Collector to retrieve secrets: Modify the Collector configuration to retrieve secrets from the secret management solution instead of directly embedding them. This typically involves using:
      • Environment variables: Reference secrets stored in environment variables within the configuration.
      • File-based secrets: Reference secrets stored in files with restricted permissions.
      • Secret store extensions: Utilize extensions like vault secret provider to directly integrate with secret management systems like HashiCorp Vault.
    5. Restrict access to secrets: Implement strict access control policies for the secret management solution to limit who can access and manage secrets. Follow the principle of least privilege. Ensure the Collector process itself has only the necessary permissions to access required secrets.
    6. Regularly rotate secrets: Establish a process for regularly rotating secrets managed by the secret management solution to reduce the impact of compromised credentials. Update the Collector configuration or secret references accordingly when secrets are rotated.
  • List of Threats Mitigated:
    • Credential Exposure (High Severity): Hardcoding secrets in Collector configuration files exposes them to unauthorized access if configuration files are compromised or inadvertently shared.
    • Privilege Escalation (Medium Severity): Compromised secrets used by the Collector can be used to gain unauthorized access to backend systems or resources that the Collector interacts with (e.g., storage backends, monitoring platforms).
  • Impact: Significantly reduces the risk of credential exposure and privilege escalation by securely managing secrets outside of Collector configuration files and leveraging secure secret retrieval mechanisms within the Collector.
  • Currently Implemented: Partially implemented. Environment variables might be used for some secrets, but comprehensive external secret management using dedicated secret store extensions is likely missing.
    • Location: Environment variable usage might be present in some deployment scripts or configurations.
  • Missing Implementation: Full integration with a dedicated secret management solution (like Vault or Kubernetes Secrets) using Collector secret store extensions needs to be implemented to manage all secrets securely and consistently. Configuration needs to be updated to reference secrets from the chosen solution instead of embedding them directly.

Mitigation Strategy: Comprehensive Logging and Monitoring of the Collector

  • Mitigation Strategy: Enable Comprehensive Logging and Monitoring for the Collector itself.
  • Description:
    1. Configure detailed Collector logging: Configure the Collector's service.telemetry.logs settings in the configuration file to generate detailed logs that capture security-relevant events, including:
      • Authentication attempts (successful and failed) if authentication extensions are used.
      • Authorization decisions (allowed and denied access) if authorization mechanisms are implemented.
      • Configuration loading and changes.
      • Errors and exceptions within Collector components (receivers, processors, exporters, extensions).
      • Resource utilization metrics (CPU, memory, etc.).
      • Network connection events related to receivers and exporters.
    2. Choose a logging exporter: Configure a logging exporter within the Collector (e.g., logging exporter, or exporters to send logs to centralized logging systems like OTLP log exporter, file exporter, etc.) to send Collector logs to a centralized logging system (e.g., Elasticsearch, Splunk, cloud logging services) for secure storage and analysis.
    3. Implement Collector monitoring: Configure the Collector's service.telemetry.metrics settings to enable metrics collection for the Collector itself. Utilize a metrics exporter (e.g., Prometheus exporter, OTLP metrics exporter) to export these metrics to a monitoring system (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, cloud monitoring). Monitor key Collector metrics like:
      • Resource utilization (CPU, memory, etc.).
      • Error rates for receivers, processors, and exporters.
      • Queue lengths and processing latencies.
      • Connection metrics for receivers and exporters.
      • Security-related metrics if available from authentication/authorization extensions.
    4. Create monitoring dashboards and alerts: Create monitoring dashboards in your chosen monitoring system to visualize key Collector metrics. Set up alerts to notify administrators of suspicious activity, performance issues, or security-related events detected in logs or metrics.
    5. Analyze Collector logs for security incidents: Regularly analyze Collector logs in the centralized logging system for security-related events, such as failed authentication attempts, unusual error patterns, or configuration changes.
    6. Integrate with SIEM/SOAR (optional): Consider integrating Collector logs and alerts with a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) or Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) system for advanced security monitoring and incident response.
  • List of Threats Mitigated:
    • Delayed Incident Detection (High Severity): Insufficient logging and monitoring of the Collector can delay the detection of security incidents affecting the telemetry pipeline or the Collector itself, allowing attackers to operate undetected for longer periods.
    • Lack of Visibility into Collector Security Events (Medium Severity): Without comprehensive logging and monitoring of the Collector, it's difficult to investigate security incidents related to the Collector, understand attack vectors targeting the Collector, and improve its security posture.
    • Performance Degradation Detection (Medium Severity): Monitoring Collector performance helps detect performance issues that could be indicative of DoS attacks targeting the Collector or resource exhaustion due to misconfiguration or attacks.
  • Impact: Significantly reduces the risk of delayed incident detection and improves visibility into security events related to the Collector by providing comprehensive logging and monitoring capabilities for the Collector itself.
  • Currently Implemented: Partially implemented. Basic logging might be enabled for the Collector, but detailed security-relevant logging and comprehensive monitoring dashboards specifically for the Collector are likely missing.
    • Location: Basic logging configuration might be present in the Collector configuration.
  • Missing Implementation: Detailed logging configuration needs to be implemented within the Collector's service.telemetry.logs settings to capture security-relevant events. A logging exporter needs to be configured to send logs to a centralized system. Metrics collection needs to be enabled in service.telemetry.metrics and a metrics exporter configured to send metrics to a monitoring system. Monitoring dashboards and alerting mechanisms for the Collector need to be set up.