threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for eleme/mess

Threat: Message Tampering

Description: An attacker intercepts messages in transit between producers, mess broker, and consumers, or accesses message storage within mess. They then modify the message content to inject malicious data, alter application logic, or corrupt data. This could be done by network sniffing (if unencrypted), man-in-the-middle attacks, or gaining unauthorized access to mess storage.

Impact: Data corruption, application malfunction, injection of malicious payloads leading to further exploits in consuming applications, financial loss, reputational damage.

Affected Mess Component: Message payload in transit and at rest within mess broker.

Risk Severity: High

Mitigation Strategies:

• Implement message signing at the application level before sending messages to mess.
• Implement message encryption at the application level before sending messages to mess.
• Use TLS/SSL for all communication channels between producers, mess broker, and consumers.
• Implement integrity checks on messages upon consumption in receiving applications.

Threat: Message Spoofing

Description: An attacker crafts and injects forged messages into mess queues, pretending to be a legitimate producer. They could exploit lack of authentication or weak authorization to send messages directly to the mess broker. These spoofed messages can trigger unintended actions in consuming applications.

Impact: Processing of unauthorized commands, data manipulation, system disruption, potential for privilege escalation in consuming applications if spoofed messages exploit vulnerabilities.

Affected Mess Component: Message producer authentication and authorization mechanisms (or lack thereof) when interacting with mess broker.

Risk Severity: High

Mitigation Strategies:

• Implement strong authentication for message producers connecting to mess.
• Implement authorization to control which producers can send messages to specific queues.
• Validate message origin and sender identity upon consumption in receiving applications.
• Use access control lists (ACLs) within mess if available to restrict producer access.

Threat: Message Interception (Eavesdropping)

Description: An attacker intercepts network traffic between producers, mess broker, and consumers to read message content. This can be achieved through network sniffing on unencrypted channels or by compromising network infrastructure.

Impact: Confidentiality breach, exposure of sensitive data contained within messages, potential for further attacks based on intercepted information.

Affected Mess Component: Network communication channels between mess components.

Risk Severity: High

Mitigation Strategies:

• Enforce TLS/SSL encryption for all communication channels between producers, mess broker, and consumers.
• Encrypt sensitive data within message payloads at the application level before sending them through mess.
• Implement network segmentation to limit the attack surface and potential for eavesdropping.

Threat: Unauthorized Message Production

Description: An attacker gains unauthorized access to the mess broker, potentially by exploiting weak credentials, vulnerabilities in mess itself, or misconfigurations. Once inside, they can send arbitrary messages to any queue they can access, disrupting operations or injecting malicious data.

Impact: System disruption, resource exhaustion, injection of malicious data, potential for denial of service, data corruption.

Affected Mess Component: mess broker access control and authentication mechanisms.

Risk Severity: Critical

Mitigation Strategies:

• Implement strong authentication and authorization for all connections to the mess broker.
• Restrict producer access to only necessary queues based on the principle of least privilege.
• Regularly audit and review access control configurations for mess.
• Harden the mess broker deployment environment and keep mess software updated.

Threat: Unauthorized Message Consumption

Description: An attacker gains unauthorized access to the mess broker and consumes messages from queues they should not have access to. This could be due to weak credentials, vulnerabilities, or misconfigurations. This allows them to read sensitive data intended for legitimate consumers.

Impact: Data breach, information disclosure, violation of data privacy regulations, potential for further attacks based on exposed information.

Affected Mess Component: mess broker access control and authentication mechanisms.

Risk Severity: Critical

Mitigation Strategies:

• Implement strong authentication and authorization for all consumers connecting to mess.
• Restrict consumer access to only necessary queues based on the principle of least privilege.
• Regularly audit and review access control configurations for mess.
• Harden the mess broker deployment environment and keep mess software updated.

Threat: Message Queue Flooding (Denial of Service)

Description: An attacker floods a mess queue with a massive number of messages, overwhelming the mess broker and consuming applications. This can lead to performance degradation, service unavailability, and resource exhaustion. Attackers might exploit publicly accessible producer endpoints or compromised producer accounts.

Impact: Service disruption, application unavailability, performance degradation, resource exhaustion, financial loss due to downtime.

Affected Mess Component: mess broker queue processing and resource management.

Risk Severity: High

Mitigation Strategies:

• Implement rate limiting on message producers to control the message injection rate.
• Configure queue size limits within mess to prevent unbounded queue growth.
• Implement input validation and sanitization at the producer level to prevent malicious message injection.
• Monitor queue depth and message processing times to detect potential flooding attacks.
• Consider using resource quotas and throttling mechanisms within mess if available.

Threat: mess Broker Compromise

Description: An attacker exploits vulnerabilities in the mess broker software, its dependencies, or the underlying infrastructure (OS, network, etc.) to gain control of the mess broker server. This allows them to manipulate messages, disrupt service, access sensitive data, or use the compromised broker as a pivot point for further attacks.

Impact: Complete service disruption, data breaches, message manipulation, loss of data integrity, potential for lateral movement within the infrastructure.

Affected Mess Component: Entire mess broker application and its underlying infrastructure.

Risk Severity: Critical

Mitigation Strategies:

• Regularly update mess to the latest version and apply security patches promptly.
• Harden the operating system and infrastructure where mess is deployed.
• Implement strong access controls and monitoring for the mess broker server.
• Follow security best practices for deploying and managing Go applications (if mess is written in Go).
• Perform regular vulnerability scanning and penetration testing of the mess infrastructure.

Threat: Exposure of mess Management Interface

Description: If mess provides a management interface (web UI, API, command-line tools), and it is not properly secured (e.g., exposed to the public internet, weak authentication), attackers can gain access to manage and control the message queue system. This can lead to configuration changes, data manipulation, or service disruption.

Impact: Unauthorized management of mess, data breaches, service disruption, potential for complete system takeover.

Affected Mess Component: mess management interface (if any).

Risk Severity: High

Mitigation Strategies:

• Secure the mess management interface with strong authentication and authorization.
• Restrict access to the management interface to authorized personnel only and from trusted networks (e.g., internal network).
• Consider disabling or isolating the management interface in production environments if it's not actively needed.
• If a web UI is used, ensure it is protected against common web application vulnerabilities.