Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
29 lines (24 loc) · 4.46 KB

attack-surface.md

File metadata and controls

29 lines (24 loc) · 4.46 KB

Attack Surface Analysis for zetbaitsu/compressor

Attack Surface: Decompression Bomb (Zip Bomb/Gzip Bomb) Vulnerability

  • Description: Processing maliciously crafted compressed files that expand to an extremely large size upon decompression, leading to resource exhaustion.
    • Compressor Contribution: The compressor library's core function is decompression. It directly handles the processing of compressed data, making it the component that triggers the decompression bomb vulnerability when processing malicious files.
    • Example: An attacker uploads a small (e.g., 100KB) zip bomb file to an application endpoint. The application uses compressor to decompress this file. Upon decompression, the file expands to gigabytes, rapidly consuming server memory and CPU, leading to a denial of service.
    • Impact: Denial of Service (DoS), Resource Exhaustion (CPU, Memory, Disk Space), Application Crash, Server Unresponsiveness.
    • Risk Severity: Critical
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Strict Input Size Limits: Implement and enforce maximum file size limits for uploaded compressed files before they are processed by compressor.
      • Decompression Ratio Limits: Monitor the ratio between the decompressed size and the original compressed size. Abort the decompression process immediately if this ratio exceeds a predefined, safe threshold (e.g., 10:1, 100:1). This is crucial for detecting and preventing decompression bombs.
      • Resource Quotas and Limits: Configure resource quotas and limits (CPU time, memory usage) for the processes that perform decompression using compressor. Operating system level controls or containerization can be used for this.
      • Streaming Decompression: Utilize streaming decompression techniques where possible to avoid loading the entire decompressed output into memory at once. This can help mitigate memory exhaustion.
      • Regular Security Audits: Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing, specifically focusing on the application's handling of compressed data and the integration with compressor.

Attack Surface: Memory Corruption Vulnerabilities in Underlying Libraries

  • Description: Vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows or heap overflows within the underlying compression libraries (used by Go's standard library and consequently by compressor) can be triggered by maliciously crafted compressed data.
    • Compressor Contribution: compressor relies on Go's standard library packages for decompression (like gzip, zlib, flate). If these underlying libraries have memory corruption vulnerabilities, compressor, by using them, indirectly exposes the application to these risks when processing compressed data.
    • Example: A specially crafted gzip file is designed to exploit a buffer overflow vulnerability in the zlib library (used by Go's gzip package). When compressor attempts to decompress this file, it triggers the buffer overflow. This could lead to application crashes, unexpected behavior, or potentially, in more severe scenarios, remote code execution.
    • Impact: Application Crash, Unexpected Behavior, Data Corruption, Potential Remote Code Execution.
    • Risk Severity: High (potentially Critical depending on the specific vulnerability and exploitability)
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Dependency Updates and Management: Keep Go dependencies, including the standard library, updated to the latest versions. Regularly update Go itself to benefit from security patches and bug fixes in the standard library's compression packages.
      • Vulnerability Scanning: Implement automated vulnerability scanning tools that can detect known vulnerabilities in Go dependencies, including the standard library components used by compressor.
      • Stay Informed on Security Advisories: Actively monitor security advisories and vulnerability databases related to Go and its standard library, particularly concerning compression libraries. Apply security patches promptly.
      • Consider Sandboxing/Isolation: For high-security environments, consider running decompression processes in sandboxed or isolated environments. This can limit the potential impact if a memory corruption vulnerability is exploited.