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Attack Tree Analysis for mtdowling/cron-expression

Objective: Compromise Application via Cron Expression Exploitation

Attack Tree Visualization

Root Goal: Compromise Application via Cron Expression Exploitation
    ├───[AND] Exploit Cron Expression Vulnerabilities **[CRITICAL NODE]**
    │   ├───[OR] Denial of Service (DoS) **[HIGH RISK PATH] [CRITICAL NODE]**
    │   │   ├───[AND] Resource Exhaustion **[HIGH RISK PATH]**
    │   │   │   ├───[OR] CPU Exhaustion **[HIGH RISK PATH]**
    │   │   │   │   └─── Craft Complex Cron Expression **[HIGH RISK PATH] [CRITICAL NODE]**
    │   │   │   └───[OR] Memory Exhaustion **[HIGH RISK PATH]**
    │   │   │       └─── Craft Extremely Long Cron Expression **[HIGH RISK PATH] [CRITICAL NODE]**
    │   │   ├───[OR] Crash Application **[HIGH RISK PATH] [CRITICAL NODE]**
    │   │   │   └─── Input Malformed Cron Expression **[HIGH RISK PATH] [CRITICAL NODE]**
    │   │   │       ├─── Inject Invalid Syntax **[HIGH RISK PATH]**
    │   │   │       └─── Inject Unexpected Characters/Formats **[HIGH RISK PATH]**
    │   │   └───[OR] Exploit Known Library Vulnerabilities **[CRITICAL NODE]**
    │   │       ├─── Identify Known Vulnerabilities **[CRITICAL NODE]**
    │   │       └─── Exploit Unpatched Vulnerability **[CRITICAL NODE]**
    └───[OR] Logic Errors & Misinterpretation
        └───[OR] Indirect Exploitation
            └───[OR] Side-Channel Attacks

Attack Tree Path: Critical Node: Exploit Cron Expression Vulnerabilities

  • Description: This is the overarching category for attacks that directly exploit weaknesses within the mtdowling/cron-expression library itself. Success here allows attackers to leverage vulnerabilities in the library to compromise the application.
  • Attack Vectors (Sub-Nodes):
    • Denial of Service (DoS)
    • Logic Errors & Misinterpretation (While marked as lower risk overall, specific logic errors could become high risk depending on application context)
    • Indirect Exploitation (Dependency vulnerabilities could elevate risk)
    • Side-Channel Attacks (Theoretically possible, but very low risk in practice)

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path & Critical Node: Denial of Service (DoS)

  • Description: Attackers aim to make the application unavailable to legitimate users by overwhelming its resources or causing it to crash through cron expression manipulation.
  • Attack Vectors (Sub-Nodes):
    • Resource Exhaustion
    • Crash Application

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path: Resource Exhaustion

  • Description: Attackers attempt to consume excessive server resources (CPU, Memory) by providing cron expressions that are computationally expensive to parse or evaluate.
  • Attack Vectors (Sub-Nodes):
    • CPU Exhaustion
    • Memory Exhaustion

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path & Critical Node: CPU Exhaustion

  • Description: Attackers craft cron expressions that require significant CPU processing time during parsing or evaluation, leading to CPU overload and application slowdown or outage.
  • Attack Vectors (Sub-Nodes):
    • Craft Complex Cron Expression

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path & Critical Node: Craft Complex Cron Expression

  • Description: Attackers input highly complex cron expressions with numerous fields, ranges, or lists. Parsing these expressions can consume excessive CPU cycles, especially if the library's parsing algorithm is not optimized or has vulnerabilities.
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: Medium (Application slowdown or temporary disruption)
  • Effort: Low
  • Skill Level: Low
  • Detection Difficulty: Easy (High CPU usage alerts)

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path & Critical Node: Memory Exhaustion

  • Description: Attackers aim to exhaust the application's memory by providing cron expressions that lead to excessive memory allocation during parsing or evaluation.
  • Attack Vectors (Sub-Nodes):
    • Craft Extremely Long Cron Expression

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path & Critical Node: Craft Extremely Long Cron Expression

  • Description: Attackers input extremely long cron expression strings. If the library attempts to parse these without proper length limits, it can lead to excessive memory allocation and potentially memory exhaustion.
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: Medium (Application crash due to memory exhaustion)
  • Effort: Low
  • Skill Level: Low
  • Detection Difficulty: Easy (High memory usage alerts)

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path & Critical Node: Crash Application

  • Description: Attackers attempt to cause the application to terminate unexpectedly by providing malformed or unexpected cron expressions that trigger errors or exceptions in the library.
  • Attack Vectors (Sub-Nodes):
    • Input Malformed Cron Expression
    • Exploit Known Library Vulnerabilities

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path & Critical Node: Input Malformed Cron Expression

  • Description: Attackers provide cron expressions that violate the expected syntax or format, aiming to trigger unhandled errors or exceptions in the library, leading to application crashes.
  • Attack Vectors (Sub-Nodes):
    • Inject Invalid Syntax
    • Inject Unexpected Characters/Formats

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path: Inject Invalid Syntax

  • Description: Attackers intentionally introduce syntax errors into the cron expression string (e.g., typos, incorrect field separators).
  • Likelihood: High
  • Impact: Low to Medium (Application crash if not handled properly)
  • Effort: Very Low
  • Skill Level: Very Low
  • Detection Difficulty: Easy (Application error logs)

Attack Tree Path: High-Risk Path: Inject Unexpected Characters/Formats

  • Description: Attackers inject characters or formats that are not expected or handled correctly by the cron expression parser (e.g., special characters, control characters).
  • Likelihood: Medium
  • Impact: Low to Medium (Application crash if not handled properly)
  • Effort: Low
  • Skill Level: Low
  • Detection Difficulty: Easy (Application error logs)

Attack Tree Path: Critical Node: Exploit Known Library Vulnerabilities

  • Description: Attackers exploit publicly known security vulnerabilities in the mtdowling/cron-expression library. This requires the existence of a known vulnerability and the application using a vulnerable version of the library.
  • Attack Vectors (Sub-Nodes):
    • Identify Known Vulnerabilities
    • Exploit Unpatched Vulnerability

Attack Tree Path: Critical Node: Identify Known Vulnerabilities

  • Description: Attackers research and identify publicly disclosed vulnerabilities (e.g., CVEs) affecting the mtdowling/cron-expression library.
  • Likelihood: Low (Depends on vulnerability disclosure)
  • Impact: High (Can range from DoS to more severe depending on vulnerability)
  • Effort: Low
  • Skill Level: Low to Medium
  • Detection Difficulty: Medium

Attack Tree Path: Critical Node: Exploit Unpatched Vulnerability

  • Description: Attackers leverage a known, unpatched vulnerability in the mtdowling/cron-expression library to compromise the application. This requires the application to be running a vulnerable version and the vulnerability to be exploitable in the application's environment.
  • Likelihood: Low (Depends on patching practices)
  • Impact: High (Can range from DoS to more severe depending on vulnerability)
  • Effort: Low to Medium
  • Skill Level: Medium
  • Detection Difficulty: Medium