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threat-modeling.md

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Threat Model Analysis for actix/actix-web

Threat: Dependency Vulnerabilities

  • Description: An attacker exploits critical security vulnerabilities in Actix-web's dependencies (e.g., tokio, openssl if used directly). By sending crafted requests or exploiting publicly known vulnerabilities, they can compromise the application through these dependencies.
  • Impact: Remote Code Execution (RCE), Denial of Service (DoS), significant Information Disclosure, complete Data Breach, potentially full server compromise.
  • Affected Actix-web Component: Dependencies (indirectly affects the entire framework and application).
  • Risk Severity: Critical.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Proactively and regularly audit project dependencies using cargo audit.
    • Implement automated dependency update processes and immediately apply security patches.
    • Subscribe to security advisories for Rust crates, Actix-web, and its core dependencies.
    • Utilize Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools integrated into CI/CD pipelines to detect vulnerable dependencies.
    • Employ dependency pinning and carefully review dependency updates, prioritizing security fixes.

Threat: Actix-web Configuration Errors Leading to Critical Exposure

  • Description: Critical misconfigurations in Actix-web settings are exploited by an attacker. This includes leaving debug endpoints active in production, severely flawed TLS configurations allowing easy Man-in-the-Middle attacks, or extremely permissive CORS policies enabling cross-origin data theft, or exposing sensitive internal services due to incorrect routing.
  • Impact: Critical Information Disclosure (e.g., exposing database credentials, API keys), complete Account Takeover, Man-in-the-Middle attacks leading to data interception and manipulation, full CORS bypass allowing unauthorized actions, potential for lateral movement into internal networks if internal services are exposed.
  • Affected Actix-web Component: Server Configuration, Routing Configuration, Middleware Configuration, TLS Configuration, CORS Configuration.
  • Risk Severity: Critical.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Strictly adhere to Actix-web best practices for production deployments and configuration hardening.
    • Utilize environment variables or dedicated configuration management systems to manage settings, ensuring separation from application code.
    • Absolutely disable all debug features, debug endpoints, and development-specific configurations in production environments.
    • Enforce strong and up-to-date TLS configurations, including HSTS and secure cipher suites. Regularly audit TLS settings.
    • Implement restrictive and well-defined CORS policies, only allowing necessary origins.
    • Conduct thorough security configuration reviews and automated configuration checks before deploying to production.

Threat: Resource Exhaustion and Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks Exploiting Asynchronous Nature

  • Description: Attackers launch sophisticated Denial of Service attacks specifically targeting Actix-web's asynchronous request handling. This involves sending massive volumes of requests, slowloris-style attacks to exhaust connections, or crafting requests that trigger highly CPU or memory intensive operations within the application or framework, overwhelming server resources and causing service outage.
  • Impact: Complete Denial of Service (DoS), application unavailability for all users, significant financial loss due to downtime, reputational damage, potential server infrastructure instability or crashes.
  • Affected Actix-web Component: Server Core (asynchronous request handling), Resource Limits Configuration, potentially application handlers if inefficient.
  • Risk Severity: High.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Implement robust and adaptive rate limiting and request throttling middleware, tuned to application traffic patterns.
    • Configure Actix-web server limits aggressively (connection limits, request size limits, timeouts) to prevent resource exhaustion.
    • Design application logic and handlers to be highly efficient and minimize resource consumption, especially for common request paths.
    • Deploy load balancers and reverse proxies in front of Actix-web servers to distribute traffic and provide a buffer against DoS attacks.
    • Implement comprehensive monitoring and alerting for resource usage (CPU, memory, network connections) to detect and rapidly respond to DoS attacks.
    • Consider using specialized DoS protection services or infrastructure.

Threat: Critical Vulnerabilities in Custom Middleware and Handlers Leading to RCE or Data Breach

  • Description: Developers introduce critical security vulnerabilities (e.g., command injection, memory corruption, insecure deserialization) within custom Actix-web middleware or handlers. Attackers exploit these flaws through crafted requests to achieve Remote Code Execution on the server or gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.
  • Impact: Remote Code Execution (RCE) allowing full server control, complete Data Breach and exfiltration of sensitive information, significant data corruption, potential for lateral movement and further attacks within the infrastructure.
  • Affected Actix-web Component: Custom Middleware, Custom Handlers, Application Logic interacting with external systems or data.
  • Risk Severity: Critical.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Enforce mandatory secure coding practices and security training for all developers writing custom middleware and handlers.
    • Implement rigorous input validation and sanitization for all data processed in custom code, especially data from external sources.
    • Mandate thorough security reviews and code audits of all custom middleware and handlers before deployment, ideally by security experts.
    • Promote the use of well-vetted and established middleware libraries instead of writing custom solutions from scratch whenever feasible.
    • Implement robust error handling and logging, carefully avoiding the exposure of sensitive information in error messages, but ensuring sufficient logging for security incident investigation.
    • Conduct comprehensive security testing, including penetration testing and vulnerability scanning, specifically targeting custom components.

Threat: Actix-web Framework Bugs Leading to Remote Code Execution or Critical Security Bypass

  • Description: Attackers discover and exploit previously unknown, critical security vulnerabilities within the Actix-web framework itself. These bugs could allow for Remote Code Execution, significant authentication or authorization bypasses, or other severe security breaches by sending specific requests or manipulating framework behavior in unexpected ways.
  • Impact: Remote Code Execution (RCE) granting full server control, critical Authentication Bypass allowing unauthorized access to all application functionality, complete Data Breach, widespread data corruption, potential for cascading failures and infrastructure compromise.
  • Affected Actix-web Component: Actix-web Framework Core, potentially any module or function within the framework depending on the nature of the bug.
  • Risk Severity: Critical.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Maintain a proactive approach to keeping Actix-web updated to the latest stable version and immediately apply security patches released by the Actix-web team.
    • Closely monitor Actix-web's release notes, security advisories, community forums, and security mailing lists for reported vulnerabilities and security updates.
    • Encourage and facilitate internal security research and vulnerability discovery efforts, and contribute to the Actix-web community by responsibly reporting any potential bugs or security issues found.
    • Implement a Web Application Firewall (WAF) to provide a generic layer of defense against known attack patterns and potentially mitigate zero-day exploits targeting framework vulnerabilities.
    • Conduct regular and thorough security assessments and penetration testing of the application, specifically including testing against known framework vulnerabilities and looking for potential zero-day exploits.