threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for apache/zookeeper

Threat: Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks on ZooKeeper Ensemble

• Description: An attacker floods the ZooKeeper ensemble with a high volume of connection requests or operations, overwhelming ZooKeeper servers' resources and making the service unresponsive to legitimate clients.
• Impact: Application unavailability, loss of critical functionalities dependent on ZooKeeper, potential data inconsistencies.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Server (Network Listener, Request Processing Pipeline)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement rate limiting on client connections.
  • Utilize Access Control Lists (ACLs) to restrict connections to authorized clients.
  • Deploy ZooKeeper behind a firewall.
  • Monitor ZooKeeper server resource utilization and set up alerts.
  • Ensure sufficient hardware resources are allocated.

Threat: ZooKeeper Ensemble Partitioning

• Description: Network failures or server outages can partition the ZooKeeper ensemble, preventing quorum establishment and leading to service unavailability. An attacker might intentionally trigger network disruptions to cause partitioning.
• Impact: Application unavailability, loss of coordination, potential data inconsistencies.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Ensemble (Leader Election, Quorum System, Network Communication)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Ensure network redundancy and stability.
  • Deploy ZooKeeper servers in geographically diverse locations (within latency constraints).
  • Use an odd number of ZooKeeper servers for fault tolerance.
  • Implement robust monitoring of network connectivity between ZooKeeper servers.

Threat: Unauthorized Access to ZooKeeper Data

• Description: Lack of proper Access Control Lists (ACLs) or misconfigured ACLs can allow unauthorized users or applications to read sensitive data stored in ZooKeeper.
• Impact: Exposure of sensitive application data, potential compromise of application security, unauthorized modification of application behavior.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Access Control (ACLs)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement strong ACLs to restrict access based on least privilege.
  • Regularly review and audit ACL configurations.
  • Use authentication mechanisms to verify client identities.

Threat: Data Exposure in Transit

• Description: Communication between clients and ZooKeeper servers, and between ZooKeeper servers, might not be encrypted, allowing attackers to intercept and read sensitive data in transit via Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks.
• Impact: Exposure of sensitive application data during transmission, potential compromise of application security, interception of authentication credentials.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Network Communication
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Enable TLS encryption for client-to-server and server-to-server communication.
  • Enforce the use of encrypted connections for all clients.
  • Regularly review and verify TLS configuration.

Threat: Unauthorized Data Modification

• Description: Insufficiently restrictive ACLs can allow unauthorized users or applications to modify data in ZooKeeper, leading to application misbehavior or security vulnerabilities.
• Impact: Application malfunction, data corruption, potential security breaches if configuration or access control data is modified.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Access Control (ACLs), Data Model (Znodes)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement strong ACLs to restrict write access based on least privilege.
  • Regularly review and audit ACL configurations.
  • Use authentication mechanisms to verify client identities for write operations.

Threat: Man-in-the-Middle Attacks Leading to Data Modification

• Description: If communication is not encrypted, attackers performing MITM attacks can intercept and modify data in transit between clients and ZooKeeper or between ZooKeeper servers, potentially corrupting data or altering application behavior.
• Impact: Data corruption, application malfunction, potential security breaches.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Network Communication
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Enable TLS encryption for all ZooKeeper communication.
  • Enforce the use of encrypted connections.
  • Regularly review and verify TLS configuration.

Threat: Weak or Missing Authentication

• Description: Using weak authentication mechanisms or disabling authentication entirely allows unauthorized access to ZooKeeper.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to ZooKeeper data, potential data modification or deletion, DoS attacks, compromise of application security.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Authentication (SASL, Digest Authentication, Kerberos)
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement strong authentication mechanisms such as Kerberos or SASL/GSSAPI.
  • Enforce authentication for all client connections.
  • Avoid weak digest authentication; enforce strong password policies if used.
  • Regularly review and update authentication configurations.

Threat: Insufficient Authorization (ACLs)

• Description: ACLs might be too permissive or incorrectly configured, granting excessive privileges or failing to restrict access as intended, leading to unauthorized actions.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to data, potential data modification or deletion, security breaches due to excessive privileges, application malfunction.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Authorization (ACLs)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement granular ACLs based on the principle of least privilege.
  • Regularly review and audit ACL configurations.
  • Use role-based access control (RBAC) principles.

Threat: Credential Compromise

• Description: ZooKeeper credentials (usernames, passwords, Kerberos tickets, SASL tokens) can be compromised, allowing attackers to impersonate legitimate clients and gain unauthorized access.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to ZooKeeper, potential data breaches, data modification or deletion, DoS attacks, full compromise of application security.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Authentication, Credential Management
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Enforce strong password policies.
  • Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) if possible.
  • Securely store and manage ZooKeeper credentials.
  • Regularly rotate ZooKeeper credentials.
  • Monitor for suspicious activity and credential usage.

Threat: Inadequate Patching and Updates

• Description: Failure to apply security patches and updates to ZooKeeper software leaves known vulnerabilities exposed to exploitation.
• Impact: Security vulnerabilities exploitable by attackers, potential compromise of ZooKeeper and the application, data breaches, DoS attacks.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Software (All Components)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Regularly monitor for security advisories and updates for ZooKeeper.
  • Establish a process for timely patching and updates.
  • Test patches in non-production environments before applying to production.

Threat: Vulnerabilities in ZooKeeper Software

• Description: Exploitable vulnerabilities might exist in the ZooKeeper software itself, which attackers can exploit to compromise ZooKeeper, potentially gaining control or causing DoS.
• Impact: Compromise of ZooKeeper and the application, data breaches, DoS attacks, loss of data integrity, potential for remote code execution.
• ZooKeeper Component Affected: ZooKeeper Software (All Modules)
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Stay informed about ZooKeeper security advisories and vulnerability disclosures.
  • Promptly apply security patches and updates.
  • Follow security best practices for deployment and configuration.
  • Implement intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS).
  • Conduct regular security assessments and penetration testing.