Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
75 lines (64 loc) · 13.4 KB

mitigations.md

File metadata and controls

75 lines (64 loc) · 13.4 KB

Mitigation Strategies Analysis for spring-projects/spring-boot

Mitigation Strategy: Dependency Vulnerability Scanning

  • Description:
    1. Add Dependency Check Plugin: Integrate a dependency vulnerability scanning plugin into your build process (e.g., OWASP Dependency-Check Maven/Gradle plugin). Spring Boot projects heavily rely on dependencies managed by Maven or Gradle, making this crucial.
    2. Configure Plugin Thresholds: Set thresholds for vulnerability severity (e.g., fail the build on high or critical vulnerabilities). This ensures that vulnerable dependencies, often brought in via Spring Boot Starters, are addressed.
    3. Automate Scanning: Incorporate dependency scanning into your Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline to run automatically on each build. Spring Boot applications benefit from automated pipelines for consistent security checks.
    4. Regularly Review Reports: Review the generated vulnerability reports regularly. Prioritize and address identified vulnerabilities by updating dependencies to patched versions or finding secure alternatives. Spring Boot's dependency management simplifies updates, but careful review is still needed.
    5. Establish Patching Process: Create a documented process for promptly patching vulnerable dependencies, including testing and deployment procedures. Spring Boot's rapid release cycle necessitates a quick patching process.
    • Threats Mitigated:
      • Exploiting Known Vulnerabilities in Dependencies (High Severity): Attackers can exploit publicly known vulnerabilities in outdated or unpatched libraries used by your application to gain unauthorized access, execute malicious code, or cause denial of service. Spring Boot applications, due to their dependency-heavy nature, are particularly susceptible if dependency management is not proactive.
    • Impact: High reduction in the risk of exploiting known dependency vulnerabilities. Proactive scanning and patching significantly reduces the attack surface related to third-party libraries within the Spring Boot ecosystem.
    • Currently Implemented: Yes, using OWASP Dependency-Check Maven plugin integrated into Jenkins CI pipeline. Configuration is in pom.xml file.
    • Missing Implementation: Automated vulnerability patching process is not fully implemented. Currently, dependency updates are manual after vulnerability reports are reviewed.

Mitigation Strategy: Secure Spring Boot Actuator Endpoints

  • Description:
    1. Restrict Access by Default: Configure Spring Security to require authentication and authorization for all Actuator endpoints. By default, many are accessible without authentication in Spring Boot.
    2. Implement Authentication: Use Spring Security (Spring Boot's recommended security framework) to implement authentication for Actuator endpoints. Choose an appropriate authentication mechanism (e.g., Basic Authentication, OAuth 2.0) based on your environment and security requirements.
    3. Implement Authorization: Define specific roles or permissions required to access each Actuator endpoint. Grant access only to authorized users or services (e.g., monitoring systems). Spring Security integrates seamlessly with Spring Boot for authorization.
    4. Minimize Exposed Endpoints: Disable Actuator endpoints that are not strictly necessary for production monitoring and management. Use management.endpoints.enabled-by-default=false and selectively enable required endpoints in your application.properties or application.yml. This is a Spring Boot specific configuration.
    5. Customize Endpoint Paths (Optional): Change the default base path for Actuator endpoints (e.g., /actuator) to a less predictable path to reduce discoverability by automated scanners. Use management.endpoints.web.base-path=/internal-monitoring in your Spring Boot configuration.
    6. Network Segmentation (Recommended): If possible, expose Actuator endpoints only on an internal network or behind a VPN, limiting external access. This is a general security practice, but particularly relevant for sensitive Spring Boot Actuator endpoints.
    • Threats Mitigated:
      • Information Disclosure via Actuator Endpoints (Medium to High Severity): Unsecured Spring Boot Actuator endpoints can expose sensitive information about the application's configuration, environment, dependencies, and internal state. This information is specific to Spring Boot applications and their runtime environment.
      • Remote Code Execution via Actuator Endpoints (High Severity): Certain Spring Boot Actuator endpoints, if left unsecured and improperly configured, can potentially be exploited for remote code execution, a risk amplified by the powerful management capabilities of Actuator.
      • Denial of Service via Actuator Endpoints (Medium Severity): Some Spring Boot Actuator endpoints could be abused to cause a denial of service by overloading the application or triggering resource-intensive operations, leveraging Spring Boot's monitoring features against itself.
    • Impact: High reduction in risk of information disclosure and potential remote code execution through Actuator endpoints. Restricting access and minimizing exposed endpoints specifically hardens the Spring Boot management interface.
    • Currently Implemented: Partially implemented. Spring Security is configured to require authentication for /actuator endpoints using Basic Authentication. Authorization is role-based, allowing only users with the 'ADMIN' role to access them. Configuration is in SecurityConfiguration.java.
    • Missing Implementation: Fine-grained authorization for individual Actuator endpoints is missing. Currently, all Actuator endpoints are protected by the same 'ADMIN' role. Endpoint path customization and network segmentation are not yet implemented.

Mitigation Strategy: Disable Spring Boot DevTools in Production

  • Description:
    1. Profile-Based Configuration: Utilize Spring Boot profiles (e.g., dev, prod) to manage environment-specific configurations. Spring Boot profiles are a core feature for environment management.
    2. Exclude DevTools Dependency in Production: Ensure the spring-boot-devtools dependency is excluded from your production build. This can be done using Maven profiles or Gradle configurations to conditionally include the dependency only in development profiles, a common practice in Spring Boot projects.
    3. Verify Production Build: Double-check your production build artifacts to confirm that the spring-boot-devtools JAR is not included. This is a crucial step to prevent accidental inclusion of DevTools in Spring Boot deployments.
    4. Runtime Profile Check: In your application startup logic, add a check to verify that the active Spring profile in production is not a development profile and that DevTools is explicitly disabled. Log an error and potentially halt startup if DevTools is detected in production. This adds an extra layer of safety specific to Spring Boot's profile mechanism.
    • Threats Mitigated:
      • Remote Code Execution via DevTools (Critical Severity): Spring Boot DevTools, when enabled in production, can introduce severe remote code execution vulnerabilities. Specifically, the remote debug functionality and the possibility of classpath manipulation are major risks directly related to Spring Boot's DevTools feature.
    • Impact: Extremely high reduction in the risk of remote code execution vulnerabilities introduced by DevTools. Disabling DevTools in production is a critical security measure specific to Spring Boot applications.
    • Currently Implemented: Yes, spring-boot-devtools dependency is marked as optional=true in pom.xml and excluded in the production profile using Maven profiles. Production builds are verified to not include DevTools JAR.
    • Missing Implementation: Runtime profile check to explicitly verify DevTools is disabled in production is not yet implemented.

Mitigation Strategy: Reviewing and Customizing Default Configurations

  • Description:
    1. Thorough Review of Defaults: Carefully review Spring Boot's default configurations, especially security-related settings. Spring Boot's "opinionated" nature means defaults are important to understand and potentially override.
    2. Explicit Configuration: Explicitly configure security settings in your application.properties or application.yml files instead of relying on defaults, ensuring they align with your security requirements. Spring Boot's configuration files are the primary way to customize behavior.
    3. Disable Unnecessary Auto-configuration: Disable any auto-configured features or functionalities that are not essential for your application's operation to reduce the attack surface. Spring Boot's auto-configuration, while convenient, can enable features you don't need.
    4. Customize Error Handling: Pay close attention to default error handling configurations, as verbose error messages can sometimes leak sensitive information. Customize error pages to provide less detail in production using Spring Boot's error handling mechanisms.
    • Threats Mitigated:
      • Information Disclosure due to Verbose Error Messages (Medium Severity): Default error pages in Spring Boot can sometimes reveal stack traces and internal application details, aiding attackers in reconnaissance.
      • Exploitation of Unnecessary Features (Medium Severity): Enabled but unused features due to default auto-configuration can represent unnecessary attack surface.
      • Security Misconfigurations due to Reliance on Defaults (Medium Severity): Blindly accepting Spring Boot defaults without review can lead to security misconfigurations that are easily exploitable.
    • Impact: Medium reduction in risk of information disclosure and exploitation of unnecessary features. Customizing configurations to security best practices tailored to your application context is crucial in Spring Boot.
    • Currently Implemented: Partially implemented. Custom error pages are configured to reduce information leakage in production. Some default configurations have been reviewed and adjusted.
    • Missing Implementation: A systematic and comprehensive review of all security-relevant default configurations is missing. More proactive disabling of unnecessary auto-configured features is needed.

Mitigation Strategy: Properly Configuring Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

  • Description:
    1. Define Allowed Origins: In your Spring Boot application, configure CORS using Spring Boot's CORS support (e.g., @CrossOrigin annotation, WebMvcConfigurer). Explicitly specify the allowed origins (domains) that are permitted to make cross-origin requests. Avoid using wildcard (*) for allowed origins in production.
    2. Restrict Allowed Methods and Headers: Configure CORS to restrict the allowed HTTP methods (e.g., GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and headers to only those necessary for legitimate cross-origin requests. Spring Boot's CORS configuration allows fine-grained control.
    3. Credentials Handling: If your application needs to handle credentials (e.g., cookies, authorization headers) in cross-origin requests, explicitly configure allowCredentials = true in your Spring Boot CORS configuration and ensure that allowedOrigins is not set to *.
    4. Test CORS Configuration: Thoroughly test your CORS configuration using browser developer tools and by making cross-origin requests from your allowed origins to ensure it is working as expected and preventing unauthorized requests. Spring Boot's testing framework can be used to test CORS configurations.
    • Threats Mitigated:
      • Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) bypass in certain scenarios (Medium Severity): While CORS is not primarily designed for CSRF protection, misconfigured CORS in a Spring Boot application can sometimes weaken or bypass CSRF defenses if not implemented carefully in conjunction with other security measures.
      • Unauthorized Access from Untrusted Origins (Medium Severity): If CORS is not properly configured in your Spring Boot application, malicious websites or applications from untrusted origins might be able to access your application's resources and APIs, potentially leading to data breaches or other security issues.
    • Impact: Medium reduction in the risk of unauthorized cross-origin access. Properly configured CORS within Spring Boot helps to control which origins can interact with your application's resources.
    • Currently Implemented: Yes, CORS is configured in WebConfig.java using @CrossOrigin annotation on controllers and methods. Allowed origins are explicitly defined based on the front-end application domains.
    • Missing Implementation: More granular CORS configuration based on specific endpoints or request paths is not yet implemented. Currently, CORS configuration is applied at the controller level.