threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for jakewharton/rxbinding

Threat: Unbounded Event Stream Resource Exhaustion

• Description: An attacker might trigger a large number of UI events rapidly (e.g., programmatically clicking a button repeatedly, rapidly typing in a text field) that are converted into RxBinding Observables. If these Observables are not properly managed due to RxBinding's nature of easily creating event streams, the application will process these events without limit, consuming excessive CPU and memory resources.
• Impact: Application slowdown, unresponsiveness, crashes due to resource exhaustion, denial of service for the application on the client device.
• RxBinding Component Affected: RxView, RxTextView, RxAdapterView, RxCompoundButton, and any RxBinding module that creates Observables from UI events. Specifically, the easy creation of unbounded streams by RxBinding and lack of application-level backpressure handling.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement backpressure strategies using RxJava operators like throttleFirst(), debounce(), sample(), buffer(), or window() to control the rate of event processing when using RxBinding event streams.
  • Use takeUntil() or dispose() to unsubscribe from Observables created by RxBinding when the associated UI component is no longer active or needed.
  • Monitor resource usage of the application during development and testing, especially under heavy user interaction scenarios involving RxBinding event streams.

Threat: Client-Side Security Reliance on RxBinding Event Handling

• Description: Developers might mistakenly rely solely on client-side UI event handling with RxBinding for security-critical operations like input validation or authorization checks, without proper backend validation and security measures. Attackers can bypass client-side checks by manipulating requests or directly interacting with backend APIs, circumventing UI-based security that might be superficially implemented using RxBinding.
• Impact: Bypass of security controls, unauthorized access, data manipulation, security breaches.
• RxBinding Component Affected: Misuse of RxBinding in application's security architecture, not a vulnerability in RxBinding itself, but a risk amplified by the ease of event handling RxBinding provides, potentially leading to a false sense of security on the client-side.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement security-critical operations and validations on the backend or in dedicated security layers of the application.
  • Use RxBinding primarily for UI event handling and presentation logic, not as the sole security mechanism.
  • Perform thorough security testing, including penetration testing, to identify and address client-side security weaknesses that might be masked by RxBinding's UI event handling.