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Threat Model Analysis for apache/zookeeper

Threat: Unauthorized Data Modification

  • Description: An attacker gains write access to ZooKeeper znodes. The attacker could exploit weak authentication, compromised clients (though this is less direct), or network vulnerabilities. They could then modify configuration settings, disrupt service discovery, or inject malicious data using the setData(), create(), or delete() APIs. This directly exploits ZooKeeper's access control mechanisms.
    • Impact: Integrity breach. Application behavior is altered, potentially leading to instability, data corruption, or service disruption. Could be used to disable security features or redirect traffic.
    • Affected ZooKeeper Component: DataTree, ZKDatabase, Client-Server communication protocol, specifically the setData(), create(), and delete() APIs, and ACL checks.
    • Risk Severity: Critical (if it affects critical application functions) or High.
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Enable SASL authentication (Kerberos preferred).
      • Implement strict ACLs on all znodes, granting write access only to authorized clients.
      • Use TLS encryption for all client-server and server-server communication.
      • Restrict network access to the ZooKeeper ensemble using firewalls.
      • Regularly audit ACLs and authentication configurations.
      • Use ZooKeeper's versioning feature (setData() with expected version) to prevent unintended overwrites (though this is primarily an application-level mitigation, it interacts with ZooKeeper's versioning).

Threat: ZooKeeper Ensemble Denial of Service (DoS)

  • Description: An attacker overwhelms the ZooKeeper ensemble with requests, making it unavailable. This could involve flooding the network with connection attempts, sending a large number of read/write requests, creating excessively large znodes, or exploiting a vulnerability to crash ZooKeeper servers. This directly targets the ZooKeeper service.
    • Impact: Availability breach. The application becomes unavailable or experiences significant performance degradation because it relies on ZooKeeper for critical functions.
    • Affected ZooKeeper Component: Entire ZooKeeper ensemble, including LeaderElection, Follower, Observer, RequestProcessor, network communication components.
    • Risk Severity: High (if the application is highly dependent on ZooKeeper).
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Provision sufficient resources (CPU, memory, network) for the ZooKeeper ensemble.
      • Implement connection limits and request throttling (using zookeeper.setMaxClientCnxns and potentially custom throttling mechanisms).
      • Use firewalls and network intrusion detection/prevention systems.
      • Keep ZooKeeper up-to-date with security patches.
      • Monitor ZooKeeper performance metrics (latency, throughput, connection count).
      • Limit the size of znodes using jute.maxbuffer.
      • Configure appropriate client timeouts and retries (more of an application-level mitigation, but helps resilience).

Threat: Client Session Hijacking

  • Description: An attacker intercepts and takes over a legitimate client's session with ZooKeeper. This is most likely if TLS is not used, allowing the attacker to sniff network traffic and obtain the session ID. The attacker could then send requests to ZooKeeper on behalf of the hijacked client. This is a direct attack on ZooKeeper's session management.
    • Impact: Confidentiality, Integrity, and potentially Availability breaches. The attacker can read, modify, or delete data, and potentially disrupt the application.
    • Affected ZooKeeper Component: Client-Server communication protocol, session management (SessionTracker).
    • Risk Severity: High.
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Mandatory TLS encryption for all client-server communication.
      • Ensure ZooKeeper uses a strong random number generator for session IDs (generally handled by the underlying Java platform).

Threat: Exploitation of Known ZooKeeper Vulnerabilities

  • Description: An attacker exploits a known, unpatched vulnerability in a specific version of ZooKeeper. This could lead to various impacts, depending on the vulnerability, and directly targets ZooKeeper's code.
    • Impact: Varies depending on the vulnerability (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability). Could range from information disclosure to remote code execution.
    • Affected ZooKeeper Component: Depends on the specific vulnerability.
    • Risk Severity: High or Critical, depending on the vulnerability.
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Keep ZooKeeper up-to-date with the latest security patches. Subscribe to security mailing lists and monitor CVE databases.
      • Regularly scan for vulnerabilities using vulnerability scanners.