attack-surface.md

Attack Surface Analysis for steipete/aspects

Attack Surface: Aspect Injection/Manipulation

• Description: Attackers inject or manipulate aspect definitions to execute malicious code within the application's context.
• Aspects Contribution: Aspects are dynamically loaded and applied at runtime. Insecure loading or configuration processes directly enable injection of malicious aspects.
• Example: An attacker exploits a vulnerability in the application's configuration loading mechanism to inject a malicious aspect definition. This aspect intercepts all network requests and exfiltrates user credentials to a remote server.
• Impact: Complete application compromise, data breach, arbitrary code execution, privilege escalation.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Secure Aspect Loading: Load aspect definitions only from trusted and verified sources.
  • Input Validation: Strictly validate and sanitize any input used to configure or load aspects to prevent injection attacks.
  • Code Signing/Integrity Checks: Implement code signing or cryptographic integrity checks for aspect code to ensure it hasn't been tampered with before loading.
  • Principle of Least Privilege: Limit the application's permissions regarding aspect loading and management to the absolute minimum required.
  • Runtime Aspect Management Security: Secure any runtime aspect management APIs with strong authentication and authorization to prevent unauthorized modification.

Attack Surface: Aspect Code Vulnerabilities

• Description: Vulnerabilities within the aspect code itself can be exploited, similar to vulnerabilities in any other part of the application code, but directly impacting the AOP logic.
• Aspects Contribution: Aspects are code that executes within the application's context and modifies application behavior. Vulnerabilities in aspect logic, especially when handling external data or performing sensitive operations within aspects, become a direct attack vector.
• Example: An aspect designed to log user actions contains a buffer overflow vulnerability. An attacker crafts a specific user action that triggers the overflow within the aspect's logging function, leading to arbitrary code execution.
• Impact: Arbitrary code execution, denial of service, unexpected application behavior, data corruption.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Secure Coding Practices for Aspects: Apply rigorous secure coding practices specifically when developing aspect code, including input validation, output encoding, and avoiding common vulnerability patterns.
  • Dedicated Code Reviews and Security Testing for Aspects: Conduct focused code reviews and security testing specifically targeting aspect implementations and their interactions with the application.
  • Static Analysis of Aspect Code: Utilize static analysis tools to proactively identify potential vulnerabilities within aspect code before deployment.
  • Secure Dependency Management for Aspects: If aspects rely on external libraries, meticulously manage these dependencies, ensuring they are up-to-date and free from known vulnerabilities.

Attack Surface: Method Swizzling and Message Forwarding Abuse

• Description: Malicious or incorrect use of method swizzling and message forwarding within aspects can lead to critical application instability, security bypasses, or unexpected and potentially exploitable behavior.
• Aspects Contribution: aspects library's core functionality relies on method swizzling and message forwarding to intercept and alter method execution. Abuse or vulnerabilities stemming from this core mechanism are directly tied to the library's attack surface.
• Example: A malicious aspect swizzles a critical authentication check method and always returns "true," effectively bypassing the entire authentication system.
• Impact: Security bypasses of critical security controls, complete application instability, denial of service, unexpected and potentially exploitable behavior due to altered program flow.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Minimize Method Swizzling in Aspects: Restrict the use of method swizzling within aspects to only absolutely necessary scenarios. Explore alternative AOP approaches if feasible.
  • Extremely Careful Swizzling Implementation: Implement swizzling with the utmost caution, ensuring meticulous handling of original method implementations and rigorously preventing unintended side effects or race conditions.
  • Extensive and Targeted Testing of Swizzling Aspects: Conduct thorough and targeted testing of aspects that utilize swizzling, specifically focusing on stability, security implications, and potential for unexpected behavior.
  • Strictly Avoid Swizzling Security-Critical Methods: Absolutely refrain from swizzling methods that are integral to security mechanisms unless there is an exceptionally strong and thoroughly vetted justification, and only after extensive security review.
  • Robust Message Forwarding Security: Design message forwarding logic within aspects to be robust and secure, preventing infinite loops, ensuring proper message handling, and avoiding any potential for exploitation through message manipulation.