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attack-surface.md

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Attack Surface Analysis for philjay/mpandroidchart

Attack Surface: 1. Malicious Chart Data Input

  • Description: Attackers provide crafted data to MPAndroidChart to cause crashes, resource exhaustion, or potentially exploit vulnerabilities in the library's parsing or rendering logic. This is the primary attack vector directly related to the library's core functionality.
    • How MPAndroidChart Contributes: MPAndroidChart's core function is processing and displaying numerical/categorical data. This data processing is the direct entry point.
    • Example: An attacker provides NaN, Infinity, extremely large/small numbers, or specially crafted strings as data points, aiming to trigger errors or unexpected behavior within MPAndroidChart's internal calculations or rendering routines.
    • Impact:
      • Denial of Service (DoS): Application crash or unresponsiveness.
      • Resource Exhaustion: Excessive memory or CPU usage, leading to slowdowns or crashes.
      • Potentially (very low probability, but high impact) arbitrary code execution if a severe parsing flaw exists that allows for injection.
    • Risk Severity: High (DoS is relatively easy to achieve; code execution is highly unlikely but has a critical impact if possible).
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Strict Input Validation: The application must rigorously validate all data before passing it to MPAndroidChart. This is the most critical mitigation:
        • Type Checking: Ensure data types are correct (numbers are numbers, etc.).
        • Range Checking: Enforce strict minimum and maximum values for numerical data.
        • Format Validation: Validate the format of all data, including strings.
        • Sanitization: Remove or escape any potentially dangerous characters.
      • Fuzz Testing: Use fuzzing tools specifically targeting MPAndroidChart's data input interfaces to identify vulnerabilities.
      • Resource Limits: Implement application-level limits on the amount of data the chart can process.
      • Robust Error Handling: Handle any exceptions thrown by MPAndroidChart gracefully, without exposing internal details to the user.

Attack Surface: 2. Lack of Library Updates and Maintenance (Indirect, but High Risk)

  • Description: If MPAndroidChart is not actively maintained, newly discovered vulnerabilities within the library itself will not be patched. This directly impacts the security of applications using it.
    • How MPAndroidChart Contributes: This is a direct risk related to the state of the MPAndroidChart library itself.
    • Example: A vulnerability is discovered in MPAndroidChart's handling of a specific data type, but no patch is released because the project is abandoned.
    • Impact: Applications using the library become increasingly vulnerable over time as new exploits targeting unpatched vulnerabilities are discovered.
    • Risk Severity: High (increases over time).
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Monitor Project Activity: Regularly check the MPAndroidChart GitHub repository for updates, issue reports, and recent commits.
      • Alternative Libraries: Actively evaluate alternative charting libraries that are actively maintained and have a good security track record. Be prepared to migrate if necessary.
      • Fork and Maintain (Last Resort): If no suitable alternatives exist and the library is essential, consider forking the project and maintaining it internally. This is a significant undertaking and requires substantial resources and expertise. This should only be considered if the application's reliance on MPAndroidChart is unavoidable and the risk of using an unmaintained library is unacceptable.