threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for juliangruber/isarray

Threat: Misinterpretation of isarray Output Leading to Critical Vulnerabilities

Threat: Misinterpretation of isarray Output for Critical Security Decisions

Description:

• Attacker Action: The attacker exploits a developer's critical misinterpretation of isarray's function.
• How: A developer mistakenly believes isarray(value) is sufficient validation for security-critical operations involving arrays, assuming it validates array content and structure in addition to type. The attacker provides input that isarray correctly identifies as an array, but the array contains malicious data specifically crafted to exploit vulnerabilities in subsequent processing steps that lack proper content validation. For example, if isarray is used as the sole check before constructing a database query or executing a system command based on array elements, malicious array content can lead to severe injection vulnerabilities.

Impact:

• Critical Data Injection: Malicious data within the array can be directly injected into backend systems (e.g., SQL databases, command-line interpreters) leading to data breaches, data corruption, or system compromise.
• Remote Code Execution (RCE): In extreme cases, if array elements are used to construct commands or code executed by the server, successful injection could lead to Remote Code Execution, allowing the attacker to completely control the server.
• Privilege Escalation: Exploiting logic flaws caused by misinterpreting isarray's output could lead to privilege escalation, granting attackers unauthorized access to sensitive resources or administrative functions.

Affected Component: Application Logic critically relying on isarray function output without further input validation.

Risk Severity: High to Critical (Severity depends on the criticality of the application logic relying on isarray and the extent of missing content validation)

Mitigation Strategies:

• Never Rely Solely on isarray for Security Validation: isarray only verifies the type is array. It provides no validation of array content.
• Mandatory Content Validation: Always implement robust validation of array contents after using isarray, especially for security-sensitive operations. This includes:
  • Strictly validating the data type of each element.
  • Enforcing allowed formats and structures for each element.
  • Using whitelists to restrict allowed values within the array.
  • Sanitizing array elements to remove or escape potentially malicious characters before further processing.
• Secure Design Principles: Design applications with the principle of least privilege and defense in depth. Avoid directly using user-provided data in critical operations without multiple layers of validation and sanitization.
• Security Code Reviews and Testing: Conduct thorough security code reviews and penetration testing to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities arising from misinterpretations of input validation functions like isarray.