threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for docusealco/docuseal

Threat: Insecure Document Storage

• Description: An attacker gains unauthorized access to Docuseal's document storage. This could be through exploiting storage misconfigurations, OS vulnerabilities, or compromised admin credentials. The attacker can then read, modify, or delete sensitive documents stored by Docuseal.
• Impact: Data breach, loss of document confidentiality, integrity compromise, legal and regulatory violations, severe reputational damage.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Document Storage Module.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement strong encryption at rest for all stored documents.
  • Enforce strict access control lists (ACLs) and role-based access control (RBAC) on the document storage.
  • Conduct regular security audits of storage configurations and access logs.
  • Harden the underlying operating system and storage infrastructure.
  • Utilize multi-factor authentication for all administrative accounts.

Threat: Document Tampering During Storage or Processing

• Description: An attacker intercepts or gains access to documents while Docuseal is storing or processing them. They can modify document content, metadata, or signatures by exploiting network vulnerabilities (MITM), internal communication flaws within Docuseal, or by compromising a Docuseal server.
• Impact: Loss of document integrity, invalid digital signatures, legal invalidity of signed documents, significant disruption to business processes, potential financial losses.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Document Processing Pipeline, Internal Communication Channels.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement cryptographic integrity checks (checksums, HMAC, digital signatures) throughout the document lifecycle within Docuseal.
  • Secure all internal communication channels using TLS/SSL or equivalent encryption.
  • Maintain up-to-date Docuseal and all its dependencies to patch known vulnerabilities promptly.
  • Implement robust input validation and sanitization to prevent injection attacks that could lead to document manipulation.

Threat: Weak Signature Verification

• Description: An attacker exploits weaknesses in Docuseal's signature verification process. This could involve flaws in cryptographic algorithms, implementation errors, or use of weak/compromised keys. The attacker could forge signatures that Docuseal incorrectly validates or bypass signature verification entirely.
• Impact: Complete failure of Docuseal's core security function, invalid and unreliable signatures, legal invalidity of documents, significant financial losses, severe reputational damage.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Signature Verification Module, Cryptographic Library Integration.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Use only strong, industry-standard cryptographic algorithms for signature generation and verification (e.g., RSA, ECDSA with sufficient key lengths).
  • Strictly adhere to established digital signature standards (e.g., PKCS#7, X.509).
  • Perform regular, thorough security audits and penetration testing of the signature verification process.
  • Implement secure key management practices, including secure generation, storage, and rotation of cryptographic keys.

Threat: Non-Repudiation Issues

• Description: An attacker exploits weaknesses in Docuseal's signer authentication, audit logging, or timestamping. This allows a signer to falsely deny signing a document, or makes it difficult to prove the signing time. This could be achieved by compromising authentication, manipulating logs, or lack of secure timestamping within Docuseal.
• Impact: Weakened legal enforceability of signed documents, disputes over document authenticity and signer identity, potential financial losses, reputational damage affecting trust in Docuseal.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Authentication Module, Audit Logging Module, Timestamping Module (if implemented by Docuseal).
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement strong multi-factor authentication for all signers.
  • Maintain detailed, tamper-proof audit logs of all signing events, including timestamps, signer identity, document details, and source IP addresses.
  • Integrate with a trusted timestamping service to provide irrefutable proof of signing time for documents.
  • Ensure secure storage and strict access control for all audit logs.

Threat: Man-in-the-Middle Attacks on Signature Process

• Description: An attacker intercepts communication during the Docuseal signature workflow, either between Docuseal components or between Docuseal and signers. They can eavesdrop, modify documents in transit, or impersonate parties involved in signing by performing network attacks like sniffing, ARP poisoning, or DNS spoofing.
• Impact: Compromised document integrity, forged signatures accepted by Docuseal, data breaches through intercepted communication, loss of confidentiality and integrity, legal invalidity of documents signed through compromised channels.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Network Communication Modules, API Endpoints, User Interface components involved in direct communication during signing.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Mandatory enforcement of HTTPS for all communication channels within and around Docuseal.
  • Implement mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication where feasible to strongly verify the identity of communicating parties.
  • Utilize secure communication protocols exclusively and avoid any reliance on insecure channels (like unencrypted HTTP).
  • Educate users about the risks of using untrusted networks (e.g., public Wi-Fi) for sensitive document signing operations.

Threat: Bypass of Docuseal Access Controls

• Description: An attacker exploits vulnerabilities in Docuseal's access control mechanisms to gain unauthorized access to documents or functionalities. This could be through SQL injection, authentication bypass flaws, or logical errors in access control implementation within Docuseal itself. The attacker can then view, modify, or delete documents beyond their authorization, or manipulate signing workflows.
• Impact: Confidentiality breach of sensitive documents, unauthorized data modification leading to integrity compromise, disruption of critical document workflows, potential privilege escalation, legal and regulatory non-compliance.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Access Control Module, Authentication Module, Authorization Engine.
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Conduct thorough security reviews and penetration testing specifically focused on Docuseal's access control implementation.
  • Strictly adhere to the principle of least privilege in assigning user permissions within Docuseal.
  • Implement regular audits of access control configurations and user permissions.
  • Employ parameterized queries or ORM frameworks to effectively prevent SQL injection vulnerabilities.
  • Implement robust input validation and sanitization across all Docuseal input points.

Threat: Privilege Escalation within Docuseal

• Description: An attacker with limited privileges within Docuseal exploits vulnerabilities to gain higher, administrative privileges. This could be via flaws in role-based access control, insecure API endpoints within Docuseal, or logic errors in privilege management. With elevated privileges, the attacker can perform administrative actions, access all documents managed by Docuseal, and potentially fully compromise the Docuseal system.
• Impact: Complete compromise of the Docuseal system, unauthorized access to all managed data, full control over Docuseal functionality, large-scale data breaches, severe system instability, critical reputational damage.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Module, Privilege Management, API Endpoints.
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement a robust and well-defined role-based access control system with clearly separated roles and permissions within Docuseal.
  • Regularly audit and conduct penetration testing specifically to identify and remediate privilege escalation vulnerabilities within Docuseal.
  • Follow secure coding practices rigorously during any Docuseal integration or customization efforts.
  • Minimize the number of users granted administrative privileges within Docuseal to reduce the attack surface.

Threat: Vulnerabilities in Docuseal Dependencies

• Description: An attacker exploits known security vulnerabilities present in third-party libraries or components that Docuseal relies upon. This is often done by targeting publicly disclosed vulnerabilities in outdated dependencies. Successful exploitation can lead to remote code execution, denial of service, or data breaches within Docuseal.
• Impact: Wide range of severe impacts depending on the specific vulnerability, including remote code execution allowing full system takeover, denial of service disrupting Docuseal availability, and data breaches leading to confidentiality loss.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Dependency Management, Third-Party Libraries, Underlying Operating System Libraries used by Docuseal.
• Risk Severity: High to Critical (depending on the specific dependency vulnerability)
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Maintain a comprehensive inventory of all Docuseal dependencies, including direct and transitive dependencies.
  • Implement continuous monitoring for security vulnerabilities in these dependencies using vulnerability scanners and subscribing to security advisories.
  • Establish and enforce a rapid patch management process to promptly update dependencies to their latest secure versions as vulnerabilities are disclosed.
  • Integrate dependency scanning tools into the CI/CD pipelines to automate vulnerability detection before deployment.

Threat: Insecure Integration with Application

• Description: An attacker exploits security vulnerabilities introduced during the integration of Docuseal with the main application. This can stem from insecure API design, improper data handling between the application and Docuseal, or insufficient input validation at integration points. Attackers can leverage these weaknesses to bypass Docuseal's security, inject malicious code into the application via Docuseal, or gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.
• Impact: Bypassing Docuseal security controls, data breaches due to integration flaws, injection attacks compromising application or Docuseal, unauthorized access to application data via Docuseal integration points, potential compromise of the overall application security posture.
• Affected Docuseal Component: Integration APIs exposed by Docuseal, Application Interface interacting with Docuseal, Data Exchange Mechanisms between application and Docuseal.
• Risk Severity: High to Critical (depending on the severity of integration vulnerabilities)
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Adhere to secure coding practices throughout the Docuseal integration process.
  • Carefully design and rigorously secure all APIs and interfaces between the application and Docuseal, following security best practices.
  • Implement robust input validation and output encoding at all integration points to prevent injection and other integration-related attacks.
  • Conduct dedicated security testing specifically targeting the integration points, including penetration testing, code reviews, and security-focused integration tests.
  • Utilize secure communication protocols (like HTTPS) for all data exchange between the application and Docuseal to protect data in transit.