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attack-surface.md

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Attack Surface Analysis for gleam-lang/gleam

Attack Surface: Vulnerable Hex Dependencies

  • Description: Using Hex packages with known security vulnerabilities within a Gleam project.
    • Gleam Contribution: Gleam projects rely on Hex for dependency management. The ease of integrating Hex packages can inadvertently increase the attack surface if dependencies are not carefully vetted and managed for vulnerabilities.
    • Example: A Gleam web application includes a Hex package for handling user authentication that contains a publicly known SQL injection vulnerability. Attackers exploit this vulnerability to gain unauthorized access to user accounts.
    • Impact: Application compromise, data breaches (user credentials, sensitive data), unauthorized access, potential for lateral movement within the system.
    • Risk Severity: Critical.
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Automated Dependency Scanning: Integrate dependency scanning tools into the CI/CD pipeline to automatically detect known vulnerabilities in Hex packages before deployment.
      • Regular Dependency Updates: Establish a process for regularly updating Hex dependencies to their latest versions, ensuring timely application of security patches.
      • Vulnerability Monitoring and Alerts: Subscribe to security advisories and vulnerability databases related to Hex packages and the Erlang/OTP ecosystem to proactively identify and address emerging threats.
      • Security Audits of Dependencies: For critical applications, conduct security audits of key Hex dependencies, especially those handling sensitive data or core application logic, to identify potential vulnerabilities beyond publicly known ones.

Attack Surface: Malicious Hex Packages

  • Description: Unintentionally incorporating malicious packages from the Hex package registry into a Gleam project. These packages are designed to intentionally harm the application or its environment.
    • Gleam Contribution: Gleam projects, like those in other ecosystems using public package registries, are susceptible to supply chain attacks via malicious Hex packages. Developers might unknowingly introduce malicious code by trusting packages without thorough verification.
    • Example: A developer adds a seemingly useful Hex package for image processing to their Gleam application. This package, however, contains hidden code that exfiltrates environment variables containing API keys to an attacker-controlled server upon installation or during application runtime.
    • Impact: Full application compromise, data breaches, supply chain compromise affecting all users of the application, compromised development and production environments, potential for persistent backdoors.
    • Risk Severity: Critical.
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Rigorous Package Provenance Verification: Thoroughly investigate the author and maintainer reputation of Hex packages before adoption. Prioritize packages from well-known, trusted sources with active community support.
      • Source Code Review of Dependencies: For all new and critical dependencies, conduct manual source code reviews to identify any suspicious or malicious code patterns before integrating them into the project.
      • Principle of Least Privilege for Dependencies: Design the application architecture to minimize the permissions and access granted to dependencies. Utilize sandboxing or containerization to limit the potential impact of a compromised dependency.
      • Network Monitoring for Suspicious Outbound Connections: Implement network monitoring to detect and alert on unusual outbound network connections originating from the application, which could indicate malicious activity from a compromised dependency.
      • Internal Package Registry (Strongly Recommended for Sensitive Environments): For highly sensitive applications, establish a curated internal Hex package registry, allowing only pre-approved and security-vetted packages to be used within projects.

Attack Surface: Unsafe Gleam FFI Usage

  • Description: Introducing vulnerabilities through incorrect or insecure use of Gleam's Foreign Function Interface (FFI) when interacting with Erlang code. This can bypass Gleam's type safety and introduce weaknesses.
    • Gleam Contribution: Gleam's FFI feature, while powerful for interoperability, creates a potential attack surface if developers do not carefully manage the boundary between Gleam's type-safe environment and potentially less-structured or less-safe Erlang code. Incorrect data handling or assumptions at this boundary can lead to vulnerabilities.
    • Example: Gleam code uses FFI to call an Erlang function that is not designed to handle untrusted input and is vulnerable to buffer overflows. If Gleam passes user-controlled data directly to this Erlang function without proper sanitization or validation, it could trigger a buffer overflow, leading to crashes or potentially remote code execution.
    • Impact: Crashes, memory corruption, potential for remote code execution, denial of service, escalation of privileges depending on the nature of the vulnerability in the Erlang code and the data passed via FFI.
    • Risk Severity: High to Critical (depending on the FFI usage and the security of the interfaced Erlang code).
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Secure FFI Boundary Design: Treat the FFI boundary as a critical security perimeter. Implement robust input validation and sanitization for all data passed from Gleam to Erlang via FFI.
      • Type Safety Enforcement at FFI: Maximize type safety at the FFI boundary. Define clear and strict type specifications for data exchanged between Gleam and Erlang. Use Gleam's type system to enforce these constraints as much as possible before crossing the FFI boundary.
      • Secure Erlang Function Selection and Review: When using FFI, carefully select Erlang functions that are designed to be secure and handle untrusted input safely. Review the Erlang code being called via FFI for potential vulnerabilities.
      • Minimize FFI Usage and Isolate Critical FFI Calls: Reduce reliance on FFI where possible. For unavoidable FFI calls, especially those handling sensitive data or external input, isolate these calls and apply extra security scrutiny and validation.

Attack Surface: Gleam Compiler Bugs

  • Description: Exploiting bugs or vulnerabilities within the Gleam compiler itself that result in the generation of insecure or unexpected Erlang code.
    • Gleam Contribution: As a younger language, the Gleam compiler, while actively developed, might still contain undiscovered bugs that could have security implications. These bugs could lead to the compiler generating vulnerable Erlang code even from seemingly safe Gleam source code.
    • Example: A bug in the Gleam compiler could cause it to incorrectly handle certain data types or operations, leading to the generation of Erlang code susceptible to memory safety issues like buffer overflows or use-after-free vulnerabilities, even if the original Gleam code was memory-safe. This could be triggered by specific input data or code patterns in the Gleam application.
    • Impact: Potentially severe vulnerabilities in compiled applications, including memory corruption, remote code execution, denial of service, and unpredictable application behavior. These vulnerabilities are particularly concerning as they originate from the compilation process itself and might be harder to detect through typical code review of the Gleam source code alone.
    • Risk Severity: High to Critical (depending on the nature and exploitability of the compiler bug).
    • Mitigation Strategies:
      • Continuous Compiler Updates: Maintain the Gleam compiler updated to the latest stable version. Compiler updates often include bug fixes, including those with security implications.
      • Comprehensive Security Testing of Compiled Applications: Implement rigorous security testing of the compiled Erlang applications, including fuzzing, static analysis of the Erlang bytecode (if tools become available), and dynamic analysis. Focus on testing edge cases and boundary conditions that might expose compiler-introduced vulnerabilities.
      • Community Bug Reporting and Monitoring: Actively participate in the Gleam community and report any suspected compiler bugs or unexpected behavior observed during development or testing. Monitor Gleam release notes and bug trackers for reported compiler issues and security fixes.
      • Erlang Code Audits for Critical Applications: For highly critical applications, consider security audits of the generated Erlang code to identify potential vulnerabilities that might have been introduced by compiler bugs. This is a more advanced mitigation but can be valuable for high-assurance systems.