threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for hydraxman/hibeaver

Threat: Resource Exhaustion via Excessive File Size

• Description: An attacker uploads an extremely large file, exceeding server limits or available disk space. The attacker sends a single, very large file in a multipart/form-data request, and hibeaver attempts to process it.
  • Impact: Denial of Service (DoS) – the application becomes unavailable due to resource exhaustion (disk space, memory, potentially CPU).
  • Affected HiBeaver Component: Core parsing loop and buffering mechanisms within hibeaver.parser (or equivalent). Functions that read and store the body of each part.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Pre-emptive Size Limits: Implement request size limits before hibeaver processes the request.
    • HiBeaver Configuration (if available): If hibeaver has options for maximum part/request size, set them.
    • Streaming (if supported): Use hibeaver's streaming capabilities (if available) to avoid buffering the entire file in memory.

Threat: Resource Exhaustion via Excessive Number of Parts

• Description: An attacker sends a multipart/form-data request with a huge number of parts. Each part might be small, but the sheer number overwhelms hibeaver and the server.
  • Impact: Denial of Service (DoS) – the application becomes unavailable due to excessive memory allocation for handling each part's headers and metadata within hibeaver.
  • Affected HiBeaver Component: Main parsing loop in hibeaver.parser (or equivalent) that iterates through parts. Data structures storing part information.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Pre-emptive Part Count Limit: Limit the number of parts before hibeaver processes the request.
    • HiBeaver Configuration (if available): Use hibeaver's configuration options (if any) to limit the number of parts.
    • Resource Monitoring: Monitor memory usage.

Threat: Invalid Content-Type/Content-Disposition Manipulation (Directly Affecting hibeaver's Parsing)

• Description: While the impact is often realized at the application level, a cleverly crafted invalid Content-Type or Content-Disposition could, in theory, cause hibeaver itself to malfunction during parsing. This is distinct from simply passing incorrect values to the application. For example, extremely long or malformed header values could trigger buffer overflows or other parsing errors within hibeaver.
  • Impact: Potentially crashes hibeaver (DoS), or causes it to enter an unstable state, leading to unpredictable behavior. Less likely, but more severe than simply misinterpreting the headers.
  • Affected HiBeaver Component: Header parsing logic in hibeaver.parser (or a separate header parsing module). Functions extracting and storing header values.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Robust Header Parsing in hibeaver: Ensure hibeaver itself has robust header parsing that can handle malformed or excessively long header values without crashing or entering an unstable state. This is primarily a responsibility of the hibeaver developers.
    • Fuzzing: Fuzz hibeaver with malformed headers to identify potential vulnerabilities.
    • Input validation before hibeaver: If possible, perform basic validation of header lengths before passing the request to hibeaver.

Threat: Outdated hibeaver Version

• Description: The application is using an outdated version of hibeaver that contains known vulnerabilities.
  • Impact: Varies depending on the specific vulnerabilities in the outdated version. Could range from DoS to RCE (if a vulnerability exists that allows arbitrary code execution within hibeaver's context).
  • Affected HiBeaver Component: Potentially any part of hibeaver, depending on the vulnerability.
  • Risk Severity: Variable (depends on the vulnerability), potentially Critical.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Regular Updates: Keep hibeaver updated to the latest version.
    • Dependency Management: Use a dependency management system.
    • Vulnerability Scanning: Use vulnerability scanners.