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attack-surface.md

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Attack Surface Analysis for urfave/cli

Attack Surface: Command and Flag Parsing Vulnerabilities

  • Description: Exploiting weaknesses in urfave/cli's core functionality of parsing command-line arguments and flags. This can lead to unintended application behavior due to flaws in how urfave/cli interprets or handles malformed or malicious input.
  • How urfave/cli Contributes: urfave/cli is the direct component responsible for processing raw command-line input and converting it into structured data accessible by the application. Vulnerabilities in its parsing logic directly expose the application to attacks.
  • Example:
    • Attack: An attacker crafts a command with deeply nested or excessively long flag values that exploit vulnerabilities in urfave/cli's parsing algorithm, leading to a Denial of Service (DoS) by consuming excessive CPU or memory during parsing.
    • CLI Contribution: urfave/cli's parsing implementation might be inefficient or vulnerable to resource exhaustion when processing such crafted inputs, directly causing the DoS.
  • Impact: Denial of Service (DoS), potentially other impacts depending on the specific parsing vulnerability.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Developers:
      • Regular urfave/cli Updates: Keep urfave/cli updated to the latest version. Updates often include bug fixes and security patches that address parsing vulnerabilities.
      • Input Validation (Post-Parsing): While urfave/cli handles initial parsing, implement additional validation on the parsed arguments and flags within the application logic to catch any unexpected or malicious values that might bypass urfave/cli's parsing but could still cause issues.
      • Resource Limits: Consider implementing resource limits (e.g., input length limits) at the application level to mitigate potential DoS attacks related to excessively long command-line inputs, even if urfave/cli itself doesn't have inherent vulnerabilities.
    • Users:
      • Report Suspicious Behavior: If you encounter unexpected errors or crashes when using seemingly valid command-line arguments, report it to the application developers as it might indicate a parsing vulnerability.

Attack Surface: Help Text Information Disclosure (Critical in Specific Cases)

  • Description: Unintentionally revealing highly sensitive information through the automatically generated help text by urfave/cli. While generally Medium risk, it becomes Critical if highly sensitive secrets are exposed.
  • How urfave/cli Contributes: urfave/cli directly generates the help text based on the command and flag configurations provided by the developer. If developers mistakenly include sensitive information in descriptions or examples, urfave/cli will faithfully expose this information in the help output.
  • Example:
    • Attack: A developer, during testing, might accidentally include a real API key or a database password directly within a flag description example in the urfave/cli configuration. When a user runs --help, this sensitive credential is exposed in plain text.
    • CLI Contribution: urfave/cli's help generation mechanism directly renders and displays the developer-provided description, including the embedded sensitive credential, making it easily accessible to anyone running the application with the --help flag.
  • Impact: Critical Information Disclosure (Exposure of API keys, passwords, or other highly sensitive secrets).
  • Risk Severity: Critical (if sensitive secrets are disclosed), otherwise potentially High to Medium depending on the sensitivity of disclosed information.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Developers:
      • Thorough Help Text Review (Security Focused): Treat help text content as potentially public information. Conduct a security-focused review of all generated help text before deployment, specifically looking for any accidentally included sensitive data, internal paths, or overly revealing details.
      • Placeholder Examples (No Real Secrets): Use placeholders in example usages within help text. Never include real API keys, passwords, or other actual secrets in example commands or flag descriptions.
      • Automated Help Text Scanning: Consider incorporating automated scripts or tools into the development process to scan generated help text for patterns that might indicate accidental inclusion of sensitive information (e.g., regex patterns for API keys, passwords, etc.).
    • Users:
      • Treat Help Text with Caution: Be aware that help text, while intended for guidance, can sometimes inadvertently reveal sensitive information. Avoid relying on help text as a source of secure configuration examples.