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Threat Model Analysis for swisspol/gcdwebserver

Threat: Denial of Service (DoS) via Slow Connections (Slowloris)

  • Threat: Denial of Service (DoS) via Slow Connections (Slowloris) - If GCDWebServer's built-in timeouts are misconfigured or insufficient.

    • Description: An attacker opens numerous connections but sends data very slowly, exhausting server resources. While application-level mitigation is best, GCDWebServer's own timeout settings are a first line of defense. If these are set too high (or not at all), GCDWebServer itself becomes vulnerable.
    • Impact: Denial of service, making the application unavailable.
    • Affected GCDWebServer Component: GCDWebServerConnection and the overall connection handling within GCDWebServer. Specifically, the connectedTimeout, readTimeout, and writeTimeout properties (or their configuration equivalents) are crucial.
    • Risk Severity: High.
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Configure Timeouts: Ensure that connectedTimeout, readTimeout, and writeTimeout are set to reasonably short values within GCDWebServer's configuration. This is a direct GCDWebServer configuration issue. The specific values depend on the application's needs, but should be as short as practically possible. This is the primary mitigation at the GCDWebServer level. Application-level mitigations are still recommended as a second layer of defense.

Threat: Denial of Service (DoS) via Large Request Bodies

  • Threat: Denial of Service (DoS) via Large Request Bodies - If GCDWebServer doesn't provide any built-in limits and relies entirely on the application.

    • Description: An attacker sends a request with a very large body, consuming excessive server resources. While the application should enforce limits, if GCDWebServer itself has no built-in protection against extremely large requests, it could be directly vulnerable. This depends on the specific implementation details of GCDWebServer and how it buffers incoming data.
    • Impact: Denial of service, potentially crashing the server.
    • Affected GCDWebServer Component: GCDWebServerRequest and its subclasses (how they handle incoming data streams). The core question is whether GCDWebServer buffers the entire request body before handing it to the application, or if it provides a streaming mechanism.
    • Risk Severity: High.
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Verify GCDWebServer Behavior: Carefully examine GCDWebServer's documentation and source code to determine how it handles large request bodies. Does it have any built-in limits or buffering behavior that could be exploited?
      • If No Built-in Limits: If GCDWebServer provides no inherent protection, the application is entirely responsible for implementing size limits and streaming. This threat then moves to the application-level threat list.
      • If Built-in Limits Exist: If GCDWebServer does have some form of built-in buffering or size limits, ensure these are configured appropriately (and are not excessively large). This would be a direct GCDWebServer configuration issue.

Threat: Running with Excessive Privileges (e.g., Root)

  • Threat: Running with Excessive Privileges (e.g., Root) - Directly impacts the severity of any GCDWebServer vulnerability.

    • Description: The application (and therefore GCDWebServer) runs as root. This is not a GCDWebServer vulnerability itself, but it drastically increases the impact of any other vulnerability within GCDWebServer.
    • Impact: System compromise if any GCDWebServer vulnerability is exploited.
    • Affected GCDWebServer Component: N/A - This is an OS-level and application deployment issue. However, it directly affects the severity of all other GCDWebServer threats.
    • Risk Severity: Critical.
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Least Privilege: Never run the application (and thus GCDWebServer) as root. Use a dedicated, unprivileged user account. This is a fundamental security principle.