threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for mingrammer/diagrams

Threat: Dependency Vulnerability in diagrams Library

• Description: An attacker exploits a known vulnerability within the diagrams Python package itself. This could involve crafting specific diagram definitions or inputs that trigger the vulnerability during processing by the library. Successful exploitation can lead to arbitrary code execution on the server, denial of service, or unauthorized information disclosure.
• Impact: Critical. Full system compromise, data breach, or complete service disruption are possible.
• Affected Component: diagrams Python package (core library code).
• Risk Severity: Critical to High.
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Immediately update the diagrams library to the latest version upon release of security patches.
  • Proactively monitor security advisories and vulnerability databases specifically for the diagrams library.
  • Implement automated dependency scanning to detect outdated and vulnerable versions of diagrams.
  • Conduct regular security code reviews of the application's codebase, paying close attention to the usage of the diagrams library.

Threat: Dependency Vulnerability in Graphviz

• Description: An attacker leverages a security vulnerability present in the Graphviz software, the rendering engine used by diagrams. By crafting a malicious diagram definition, the attacker can trigger the vulnerability when Graphviz processes it for rendering. This can result in arbitrary code execution on the server hosting Graphviz, denial of service, or unauthorized access to sensitive information.
• Impact: Critical. Full system compromise, data breach, or complete service disruption are possible due to the potential for arbitrary code execution.
• Affected Component: Graphviz rendering engine (external dependency).
• Risk Severity: Critical to High.
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Ensure Graphviz is installed from a trusted and official source.
  • Maintain Graphviz at the latest stable version, applying security updates promptly.
  • Actively monitor security advisories and vulnerability databases related to Graphviz.
  • Employ containerization to isolate the application and its dependencies, including Graphviz, limiting the potential blast radius of a Graphviz vulnerability.
  • Apply principle of least privilege to the process running Graphviz, minimizing its access to system resources.

Threat: Diagram Definition Injection

• Description: An attacker injects malicious commands or code directly into the diagram definition. This is achievable if the application dynamically constructs diagram definitions using unsanitized user-provided input or data. When Graphviz processes this injected definition, the malicious code can be executed, potentially leading to command injection vulnerabilities within Graphviz's processing environment or other exploitable behaviors.
• Impact: High to Critical. Arbitrary code execution on the server is possible if the injected code exploits a vulnerability in Graphviz or the underlying system. This can lead to full system compromise or data breaches.
• Affected Component: Application code responsible for generating diagram definitions, Graphviz rendering engine.
• Risk Severity: High to Critical.
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Treat diagram definitions as code and enforce strict input validation and sanitization on all user-controlled data that influences diagram generation.
  • Avoid directly constructing diagram definitions by concatenating strings with user input. Utilize parameterized approaches or safe APIs provided by the diagrams library to build diagrams programmatically.
  • Implement robust output encoding mechanisms when displaying diagram elements derived from user input in web contexts to prevent secondary injection issues.
  • Conduct thorough security reviews of diagram generation code to identify and eliminate potential injection points.

Threat: Denial of Service (DoS) via Complex Diagram Definitions

• Description: An attacker crafts or provides an intentionally overly complex diagram definition, for example, one with an extremely large number of nodes and edges or deeply nested structures. When Graphviz attempts to render such a diagram, it consumes excessive server resources, including CPU, memory, and potentially disk I/O, leading to a denial of service condition for the application or the entire server.
• Impact: High. Service disruption, application unavailability, and potential server instability.
• Affected Component: Graphviz rendering engine, application server resources.
• Risk Severity: High.
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement strict limits on the complexity of diagrams that can be processed, such as maximum node count, edge count, or attribute complexity.
  • Enforce timeouts for diagram generation processes to prevent indefinite resource consumption in case of overly complex diagrams.
  • Utilize resource quotas or containerization to restrict the resources available to the diagram generation process, limiting the impact of resource exhaustion.
  • Implement rate limiting on diagram generation requests to prevent abuse and large-scale DoS attempts.