threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for neondatabase/neon

Threat: Neon Control Plane Compromise

• Description: An attacker gains unauthorized access to Neon's internal management systems by exploiting vulnerabilities in Neon's authentication, authorization, or infrastructure. Once inside, they could access project metadata, database credentials, modify configurations, or potentially access data across multiple projects.
• Impact: Critical. Complete loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your Neon projects and data. Potential for widespread data breaches affecting multiple Neon users.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon Control Plane Infrastructure (Authentication, Authorization, Management APIs, Internal Services)
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement robust multi-factor authentication and strong authorization policies for control plane access.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Employ intrusion detection and prevention systems, and conduct regular security audits and penetration testing.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Ensure timely patching of vulnerabilities in control plane components and dependencies.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement principle of least privilege and strong internal monitoring and logging of control plane activities.

Threat: Storage Layer Access Control Bypass

• Description: An attacker bypasses Neon's access controls to directly access the underlying storage layer (e.g., object storage) by exploiting vulnerabilities in Neon's storage access management logic or misconfigurations. This allows direct access to persistent data storage, bypassing intended access paths.
• Impact: Critical. Direct access to raw database data, leading to complete loss of data confidentiality and potentially integrity if attackers can modify data directly at the storage level.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon Storage Layer Access Management (Authentication, Authorization, Storage APIs, Data Access Logic)
• Risk Severity: Critical
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement strong and granular access control policies on the storage layer, utilizing robust authentication and authorization mechanisms.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Regularly audit storage layer access controls and configurations for weaknesses.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement data encryption at rest in the storage layer to minimize the impact of unauthorized direct access.

Threat: Compute Node Isolation Issues (Cross-Tenant Data Access)

• Description: Insufficient isolation between compute nodes serving different Neon projects. An attacker compromising one compute node could exploit weak isolation to access resources of other compute nodes, potentially gaining access to data belonging to other Neon users.
• Impact: High. Potential for cross-tenant data breaches, compromising the confidentiality and potentially integrity of data belonging to other Neon users due to insufficient isolation within Neon's infrastructure.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon Compute Node Isolation (Virtualization/Containerization, Resource Management, Network Isolation)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (Neon Responsibility): Employ strong isolation technologies like virtualization or containerization for compute nodes to enforce strict separation.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement robust resource management and sandboxing to prevent resource leakage and cross-tenant access.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Regularly test and audit isolation boundaries to ensure they are effectively enforced and prevent data leakage.

Threat: Neon Proxy Vulnerabilities Leading to Data Exposure

• Description: Exploitable vulnerabilities in the Neon Proxy component (e.g., buffer overflows, authentication bypasses, injection flaws). An attacker could exploit these to intercept database traffic, bypass authentication, or gain unauthorized access to database connections routed through the proxy, potentially compromising data in transit or at rest.
• Impact: High. Potential for data interception, unauthorized database access, and compromise of database credentials. Could lead to loss of data confidentiality and integrity due to vulnerabilities in the connection proxy.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon Proxy (Connection Routing, Authentication, Authorization, Protocol Handling)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement secure development practices for the Neon Proxy, including rigorous code reviews and static/dynamic analysis.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing specifically targeting the Neon Proxy component.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Ensure timely patching of any identified vulnerabilities in the Neon Proxy and its dependencies.
  • (User Responsibility): Always enforce TLS/SSL encryption for connections to the Neon Proxy to protect data in transit from interception.

Threat: Storage Layer Data Corruption or Loss due to Neon Bugs

• Description: Bugs or errors within Neon's custom storage layer implementation leading to data corruption or data loss. This could stem from logical errors in data management, concurrency issues, or unexpected interactions within Neon's storage logic, resulting in data integrity failures.
• Impact: High. Data corruption or data loss, potentially leading to application downtime, data integrity issues, and significant business disruption due to flaws in Neon's storage implementation.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon Storage Layer Implementation (Data Management Logic, Concurrency Control, Data Persistence Modules)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement rigorous testing and quality assurance processes for Neon's storage layer, including comprehensive unit, integration, and fault injection testing.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement data integrity checks and checksums to proactively detect data corruption within the storage layer.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Maintain robust data recovery mechanisms and procedures to effectively handle data loss scenarios arising from storage layer issues.
  • (User Responsibility - Optional): For critical data, consider implementing application-level backups as an additional safety measure beyond Neon's built-in backups.

Threat: Backup and Recovery Failures (Neon Specific)

• Description: Failures in Neon's backup and recovery mechanisms, preventing successful data restoration in case of data loss events. If Neon's backup processes are flawed or untested, data recovery might fail, leading to permanent data loss when restoration is needed.
• Impact: High. Permanent data loss, leading to significant business disruption, data integrity issues, and potential regulatory compliance failures due to unreliable backup and recovery processes.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon Backup and Recovery System (Backup Processes, Restore Processes, Backup Storage)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (Neon Responsibility): Develop and maintain robust and well-tested backup and recovery procedures, ensuring reliability and effectiveness.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Regularly test backup and recovery processes to validate their functionality and ensure successful data restoration.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Provide clear documentation and SLAs regarding backup frequency, retention policies, and recovery time objectives to users.
  • (User Responsibility - Recommended): For critical data, regularly test Neon's recovery process by requesting test restores (if possible) or simulating data loss scenarios in a non-production environment to verify recoverability.
  • (User Responsibility - Optional): Implement application-level backups as an additional layer of redundancy for critical data protection.

Threat: Neon API Key or Database Credential Compromise Leading to Neon Resource Access

• Description: Compromise of Neon API keys or database credentials used to access Neon services or databases. Attackers obtaining these credentials can gain unauthorized access to your Neon projects and databases, potentially leading to data breaches or service disruption. This threat focuses on the compromise of credentials specifically used for interacting with Neon services.
• Impact: High. Unauthorized access to Neon projects and databases, leading to potential data breaches, data manipulation, and service disruption due to compromised credentials.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon API Keys, Database Credentials (User Managed, Used for Neon Access)
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (User Responsibility): Implement secure storage and management of Neon API keys and database credentials, utilizing secrets management tools.
  • (User Responsibility): Adhere to the principle of least privilege, granting only necessary permissions to API keys and database users accessing Neon resources.
  • (User Responsibility): Enforce regular credential rotation for Neon API keys and database passwords to limit the window of opportunity for compromised credentials.
  • (User Responsibility): Avoid hardcoding credentials in application code or storing them in insecure configuration files; use secure configuration management practices.

Threat: Authentication or Authorization Bypass in Neon APIs or Interfaces

• Description: Vulnerabilities in Neon's APIs or management interfaces that allow attackers to bypass authentication or authorization checks. Exploiting these vulnerabilities could grant unauthorized access to manage Neon projects or databases without proper credentials, potentially leading to account takeover or malicious actions.
• Impact: High. Unauthorized management of Neon projects and databases, potentially leading to data breaches, service disruption, and account takeover due to bypassed security controls in Neon's management interfaces.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon APIs, Management Dashboards, Authentication and Authorization Modules
• Risk Severity: High
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement secure API design and development practices, strictly adhering to secure coding principles and security frameworks.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Conduct rigorous testing of authentication and authorization mechanisms, including dedicated penetration testing and thorough code reviews.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Perform regular security audits of Neon APIs and management interfaces to identify and remediate potential vulnerabilities.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement robust input validation and output encoding to prevent injection attacks that could be used to bypass authentication or authorization controls.

Threat: Vulnerabilities in Neon's Dependencies

• Description: Exploitable vulnerabilities present in third-party libraries, software, or services that Neon relies upon for its infrastructure and services. Attackers could leverage known vulnerabilities in these dependencies to compromise Neon's infrastructure, potentially impacting user data and services.
• Impact: High. Depending on the severity and exploitability of the vulnerability, the impact could be significant, ranging from information disclosure to complete compromise of Neon infrastructure, potentially affecting user data and service availability.
• Affected Neon Component: Neon Infrastructure and Services (Operating Systems, Libraries, Frameworks, Third-Party Services)
• Risk Severity: High (Severity depends on the specific vulnerability)
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • (Neon Responsibility): Implement careful selection and vetting of dependencies, prioritizing secure, well-maintained, and actively supported components.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Conduct regular security scanning of dependencies for known vulnerabilities using automated vulnerability scanning tools.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Ensure timely patching and updating of dependencies to address identified vulnerabilities and minimize exposure window.
  • (Neon Responsibility): Consider and implement dependency isolation techniques (e.g., containerization, sandboxing) to limit the potential impact of vulnerabilities within dependencies.