threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for burntsushi/ripgrep

Threat: Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS)

Description: An attacker provides a maliciously crafted regular expression as a search pattern. When ripgrep processes this regex against input data, it can lead to excessive backtracking and CPU consumption, causing a denial of service. The attacker might submit multiple such requests to amplify the impact.

Impact: Application performance degradation, service unavailability, resource exhaustion, denial of service for legitimate users.

Ripgrep Component Affected: Regex Engine (underlying regex library).

Risk Severity: High

Mitigation Strategies:

• Input validation and sanitization of user-provided regular expressions.
• Implement timeouts for ripgrep execution to prevent long-running regex processing.
• Consider using regex analysis tools to detect potentially problematic regex patterns before execution.
• Educate users on crafting efficient and safe regular expressions, or provide pre-defined, safe regex options.

Threat: Path Traversal via File Path Injection

Description: An attacker manipulates user-provided input intended for file paths or directory paths. By injecting path traversal sequences like ../, the attacker can force ripgrep to search files or directories outside the intended scope, potentially accessing sensitive files that should not be accessible.

Impact: Unauthorized access to sensitive files, information disclosure, potential for further exploitation if sensitive data is revealed, compromise of confidentiality.

Ripgrep Component Affected: File System Access (path handling within ripgrep's core logic).

Risk Severity: High

Mitigation Strategies:

• Strictly validate and sanitize user-provided file paths and directory inputs to prevent path traversal.
• Use absolute paths and restrict the search scope to a predefined, safe directory.
• Employ chroot or containerization to isolate the ripgrep process and limit file system access.
• Avoid directly using user-provided paths; generate paths programmatically based on validated input.

Threat: Command Injection via Unsanitized Arguments

Description: If the application constructs the ripgrep command by directly concatenating user input without proper sanitization, an attacker can inject malicious command arguments. This could involve injecting flags or options that alter ripgrep's behavior in unintended ways or even execute arbitrary commands on the system if the application's command execution method is vulnerable.

Impact: Arbitrary command execution on the server, complete system compromise, data breaches, denial of service, loss of integrity and availability.

Ripgrep Component Affected: Command Line Argument Parsing (how the application interacts with and constructs the ripgrep command).

Risk Severity: Critical

Mitigation Strategies:

• Absolutely avoid string concatenation for constructing shell commands.
• Utilize secure methods for executing external commands that provide parameterization or argument escaping, specific to your programming language.
• Whitelist allowed ripgrep flags and options that users can utilize.
• Strictly validate user input against the whitelist of allowed flags and options.
• Utilize libraries or wrappers that provide safer interfaces for executing external commands and handle argument escaping automatically.

Threat: Sensitive Data Exposure in Ripgrep Output

Description: If ripgrep is used to search files that contain sensitive information (e.g., configuration files, logs, database backups), the output of ripgrep, if not handled securely, could inadvertently expose this sensitive data to unauthorized users or processes. This is especially critical if the output is logged, displayed directly to users, or stored insecurely.

Impact: Confidentiality breach, exposure of credentials, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or other sensitive information, reputational damage, legal and regulatory repercussions.

Ripgrep Component Affected: Output Handling (how ripgrep formats and outputs search results, and how the application processes this output).

Risk Severity: High

Mitigation Strategies:

• Carefully consider and restrict the files and directories that ripgrep is allowed to search, avoiding sensitive locations unless absolutely necessary and with strong access controls.
• Sanitize or redact sensitive information from ripgrep output before displaying it to users, logging it, or storing it.
• Implement robust access controls to ensure that only authorized users can initiate ripgrep searches and access the results.
• Encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit to minimize the impact of potential information disclosure, even if ripgrep output is compromised.