threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for hapijs/hapi

Threat: Malicious Plugin Installation

1. Threat: Malicious Plugin Installation

• Description: An attacker tricks a developer into installing a malicious plugin, either by mimicking a legitimate plugin's name (typo-squatting) or through social engineering. The malicious plugin contains code that executes upon installation or during application runtime, leveraging Hapi's plugin mechanism.
• Impact: Complete application compromise, data exfiltration, arbitrary code execution, denial of service, potential lateral movement within the network. The attacker gains full control over the Hapi server.
• Affected Component: Hapi's plugin system (server.register()), specifically the mechanism for loading and executing plugin code.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Verify Plugin Source: Always download plugins from official repositories (npm, GitHub) and carefully check the author and package name.
  • Use a Private Registry: Employ a private npm registry to control which plugins are available and ensure they've been vetted.
  • Checksum Verification: If available, verify the plugin's checksum against a trusted source.
  • Dependency Scanning: Use a dependency vulnerability scanner (e.g., npm audit, Snyk, Dependabot) to identify known vulnerable plugins.
  • Code Review: Manually review the source code of any third-party plugin before deploying it to production, especially if it's not widely used or well-known.

Threat: Plugin-Induced Request Spoofing

2. Threat: Plugin-Induced Request Spoofing

• Description: A malicious or vulnerable plugin modifies the incoming request object within Hapi's request lifecycle, specifically altering authentication or authorization data (e.g., request.auth, request.credentials). The attacker bypasses Hapi's intended authentication checks or impersonates another user.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to protected resources, data breaches, privilege escalation. The attacker gains access that Hapi's authentication was designed to prevent.
• Affected Component: Hapi's request lifecycle, specifically onPreAuth, onCredentials, and any plugin that interacts with the request object within these lifecycle stages.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Centralized Validation: Validate request.auth and other security-critical data in a central, trusted location (e.g., a dedicated authentication handler) after all plugins have executed within Hapi's lifecycle. This ensures that plugin modifications are checked.
  • Input Validation: Implement strict input validation and sanitization on all data received from plugins, even if they appear to be trusted, specifically within the context of Hapi's request handling.
  • Plugin Review: Carefully review plugin code for any modifications to the request object, especially related to authentication and authorization, focusing on how they interact with Hapi's lifecycle.
  • Least Privilege: Ensure plugins only have the necessary permissions to perform their intended functions within the Hapi ecosystem.

Threat: Plugin-Based Response Tampering

3. Threat: Plugin-Based Response Tampering

• Description: A malicious or vulnerable plugin modifies the outgoing h.response object within Hapi's response lifecycle. The attacker could inject malicious content (e.g., XSS payloads), alter HTTP headers (e.g., removing security headers), or leak sensitive data, directly manipulating Hapi's response handling.
• Impact: Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, information disclosure, session hijacking, man-in-the-middle attacks (if security headers are removed). The attacker directly manipulates Hapi's output.
• Affected Component: Hapi's response lifecycle, specifically onPreResponse and any plugin that interacts with the h.response object within this lifecycle stage.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Output Encoding: Use appropriate output encoding and escaping to prevent injection attacks, ensuring this is applied after any plugin modifications within Hapi's response handling.
  • Header Security: Use Hapi's built-in functions to set security headers (e.g., h.response().header()) and ensure they are not overridden by plugins within the response lifecycle.
  • Plugin Review: Carefully review plugin code for any modifications to the h.response object, focusing on how they interact with Hapi's response lifecycle.
  • Content Security Policy (CSP): Implement a strong CSP, configured through Hapi, to mitigate the impact of XSS attacks.

Threat: Plugin-Based Denial of Service (Resource Exhaustion)

4. Threat: Plugin-Based Denial of Service (Resource Exhaustion)

• Description: A malicious or poorly written plugin consumes excessive resources (CPU, memory, file handles, database connections) within the context of Hapi's request handling. This could be due to inefficient algorithms, memory leaks, or unhandled errors, leading to application slowdown or unavailability, directly impacting Hapi's performance.
• Impact: Denial of service, application instability, impacting Hapi's ability to serve requests.
• Affected Component: Any Hapi plugin, Hapi's request handling, and potentially Hapi's connection management (if the plugin interacts with a database through Hapi).
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Resource Limits: Implement resource limits and quotas for plugins (if possible), potentially leveraging Hapi's extensibility to enforce these limits.
  • Monitoring: Monitor plugin resource usage and set alerts for excessive consumption, specifically within the context of Hapi's request processing.
  • Load Testing: Thoroughly test plugins for performance and resource usage under heavy load, focusing on their impact on Hapi's performance.
  • Asynchronous Operations: Require plugins to use asynchronous operations whenever possible to avoid blocking Hapi's event loop.
  • Circuit Breakers: Implement circuit breakers, potentially using Hapi's extension points, to prevent cascading failures.

Threat: Plugin-Induced Blocking Operations

5. Threat: Plugin-Induced Blocking Operations

• Description: A plugin performs long-running or blocking operations (e.g., synchronous network requests, heavy computations) on Hapi's main event loop. This blocks other requests from being processed, leading to a denial of service, directly impacting Hapi's core functionality.
• Impact: Denial of service, application unresponsiveness, specifically affecting Hapi's ability to handle concurrent requests.
• Affected Component: Any Hapi plugin, Hapi's event loop.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Asynchronous Operations: Require plugins to use asynchronous operations (Promises, async/await) for any potentially blocking tasks, ensuring they don't block Hapi's event loop.
  • Worker Threads: Use worker threads or separate processes for long-running tasks that cannot be made asynchronous, preventing them from interfering with Hapi's main thread.
  • Timeouts: Implement timeouts for all operations to prevent indefinite blocking within Hapi's request handling.
  • Code Review: Carefully review plugin code to identify and address any blocking operations that could impact Hapi's event loop.

Threat: Privilege Escalation via Plugin

6. Threat: Privilege Escalation via Plugin

• Description: A malicious plugin exploits vulnerabilities in the application, other plugins, or Hapi itself to gain higher privileges than intended. This could allow the attacker to access sensitive data, modify system configuration, or execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges, potentially compromising Hapi's security mechanisms.
• Impact: Complete system compromise, data exfiltration, arbitrary code execution, potentially bypassing Hapi's intended security boundaries.
• Affected Component: Any Hapi plugin, Hapi's authentication and authorization mechanisms (server.auth), potentially exploiting vulnerabilities within Hapi's core.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Least Privilege: Run the application and its plugins with the least privilege necessary, limiting the potential impact of a compromised plugin on Hapi and the system.
  • Secure Coding Practices: Follow secure coding practices to prevent vulnerabilities that could be exploited for privilege escalation, specifically within the context of Hapi's API and extension points.
  • Regular Security Audits: Conduct regular security audits of the application and its plugins, focusing on potential interactions with Hapi's core functionality.
  • Sandboxing/Containerization: Consider using sandboxing or containerization to isolate plugins and limit their access to system resources, reducing the impact on Hapi in case of a compromise.
  • Input Validation: Rigorous input validation and sanitization across all plugin interactions, especially those that interact with Hapi's core features.

Threat: Improper Authentication Strategy Configuration

7. Threat: Improper Authentication Strategy Configuration

• Description: Incorrectly configuring Hapi's authentication strategies, especially custom schemes, can lead to authentication bypasses. An attacker might be able to forge authentication tokens or exploit weaknesses in the authentication logic, directly circumventing Hapi's security features.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to protected resources, data breaches, directly compromising Hapi's authentication system.
• Affected Component: server.auth.strategy(), server.auth.default(), custom authentication schemes implemented within Hapi.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Follow Documentation: Strictly adhere to Hapi's documentation when implementing authentication strategies.
  • Use Well-Vetted Plugins: Prefer using well-established and thoroughly tested authentication plugins (e.g., @hapi/bell for OAuth) over custom implementations within Hapi.
  • Thorough Testing: Extensively test all authentication strategies, including edge cases and potential bypass attempts, specifically focusing on how they interact with Hapi's authentication mechanisms.
  • Regular Review: Periodically review authentication configurations to ensure they remain secure and up-to-date, and that they are correctly integrated with Hapi.