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BUSINESS POSTURE

  • Business priorities and goals:
    • Enable developers to build fast, secure, and reliable web applications using Rust.
    • Provide a productive and enjoyable web development experience in Rust, reducing development time and complexity.
    • Promote the adoption of Rust for backend web development by offering a robust and user-friendly framework.
  • Most important business risks:
    • Security vulnerabilities in applications built with Rocket framework could damage reputation and lead to data breaches.
    • Performance bottlenecks in Rocket framework could lead to slow applications and poor user experience.
    • Lack of community support or documentation could hinder adoption and developer productivity.
    • Bugs or instability in Rocket framework could lead to application failures and downtime.

SECURITY POSTURE

  • Existing security controls:
    • security control: Rust's memory safety features inherently prevent many common web application vulnerabilities like buffer overflows and use-after-free. Implemented by: Rust compiler and language design.
    • security control: Type system and compile-time checks in Rust reduce the likelihood of type-related errors that can lead to vulnerabilities. Implemented by: Rust compiler.
    • security control: Rocket framework encourages secure coding practices through its design, such as request guards for input validation and type-safe routing. Implemented by: Rocket framework design and API.
    • security control: HTTPS support is easily configurable in Rocket for secure communication. Implemented by: Rocket framework configuration and underlying Rust TLS libraries.
    • security control: CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) configuration is available in Rocket to control cross-origin requests. Implemented by: Rocket framework configuration and fairings.
  • Accepted risks:
    • accepted risk: Vulnerabilities in dependencies used by Rocket or applications built with Rocket. Mitigation: Dependency scanning and updates are developer's responsibility.
    • accepted risk: Developer errors in application code built with Rocket, such as insecure business logic or improper use of Rocket's features. Mitigation: Secure coding training and code reviews are developer's responsibility.
    • accepted risk: Denial-of-service attacks targeting applications built with Rocket. Mitigation: Rate limiting and infrastructure security are developer's/operator's responsibility.
  • Recommended security controls:
    • security control: Implement static application security testing (SAST) tools in the development pipeline to automatically detect potential vulnerabilities in application code.
    • security control: Implement dependency scanning tools to identify and manage vulnerabilities in third-party libraries used by Rocket applications.
    • security control: Conduct regular penetration testing and security audits of applications built with Rocket to identify and remediate security weaknesses.
    • security control: Establish and enforce secure coding guidelines for developers using Rocket framework.
    • security control: Implement runtime application self-protection (RASP) or web application firewall (WAF) for applications built with Rocket to detect and prevent attacks in runtime.
  • Security requirements:
    • Authentication:
      • Requirement: Rocket applications should support various authentication mechanisms (e.g., session-based, token-based, OAuth) to verify user identity.
      • Requirement: Authentication mechanisms should be resistant to common attacks like brute-force and credential stuffing.
    • Authorization:
      • Requirement: Rocket applications should implement fine-grained authorization to control user access to resources and functionalities based on roles and permissions.
      • Requirement: Authorization decisions should be consistently enforced throughout the application.
    • Input validation:
      • Requirement: Rocket applications must validate all user inputs to prevent injection attacks (e.g., SQL injection, cross-site scripting).
      • Requirement: Input validation should be performed on both client-side and server-side. Rocket's request guards can be used for server-side validation.
    • Cryptography:
      • Requirement: Rocket applications should use strong and up-to-date cryptographic algorithms and libraries for sensitive data protection (e.g., password hashing, data encryption in transit and at rest).
      • Requirement: Proper key management practices should be implemented for cryptographic keys.

DESIGN

C4 CONTEXT

flowchart LR
    subgraph "Organization"
        A["Web Application Developer"]
        B["End User"]
    end
    C("Rocket Framework")
    D["Rust Ecosystem"]
    E["Operating System"]
    F["Database System"]
    G["Web Browser"]

    A -- "Uses" --> C
    B -- "Interacts with" --> C
    C -- "Relies on" --> D
    C -- "Runs on" --> E
    C -- "Interacts with" --> F
    B -- "Uses" --> G
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  • Context Diagram Elements:
    • Element:
      • Name: Web Application Developer
      • Type: Person
      • Description: Developers who use the Rocket framework to build web applications.
      • Responsibilities: Develop, test, deploy, and maintain web applications using Rocket. Ensure secure coding practices and proper framework usage.
      • Security controls: Secure development environment, code review, security training.
    • Element:
      • Name: End User
      • Type: Person
      • Description: Users who interact with web applications built using the Rocket framework through web browsers or other clients.
      • Responsibilities: Use web applications to access information or perform actions.
      • Security controls: Strong passwords, awareness of phishing and social engineering attacks.
    • Element:
      • Name: Rocket Framework
      • Type: Software System
      • Description: A web framework written in Rust, designed for building fast, secure, and reliable web applications.
      • Responsibilities: Provide a foundation for building web applications, handle HTTP requests and responses, routing, request handling, and security features.
      • Security controls: Memory safety through Rust, secure coding practices in framework development, input validation mechanisms (request guards), HTTPS support.
    • Element:
      • Name: Rust Ecosystem
      • Type: Software System
      • Description: The collection of tools, libraries (crates), and community resources that support Rust development, including the Rust compiler (rustc), package manager (Cargo), and crates.io.
      • Responsibilities: Provide necessary tools and libraries for Rocket framework and applications built with it. Ensure security and reliability of core Rust components.
      • Security controls: Security audits of Rust compiler and standard libraries, crate verification on crates.io.
    • Element:
      • Name: Operating System
      • Type: Software System
      • Description: The operating system on which Rocket applications are deployed (e.g., Linux, macOS, Windows).
      • Responsibilities: Provide a runtime environment for Rocket applications, manage system resources, and provide security features at the OS level.
      • Security controls: OS hardening, security patching, access control mechanisms.
    • Element:
      • Name: Database System
      • Type: Software System
      • Description: A database system used by Rocket applications to store and retrieve data (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite).
      • Responsibilities: Persist application data, ensure data integrity and availability, and provide data access control.
      • Security controls: Database access control, encryption at rest, regular backups, vulnerability patching.
    • Element:
      • Name: Web Browser
      • Type: Software System
      • Description: Web browsers used by end users to access web applications built with Rocket (e.g., Chrome, Firefox, Safari).
      • Responsibilities: Render web pages, execute client-side scripts, and securely communicate with web servers.
      • Security controls: Browser security features (e.g., sandboxing, Content Security Policy), regular updates.

C4 CONTAINER

flowchart LR
    subgraph "Web Application Developer"
        A["Developer Workstation"]
    end
    subgraph "Deployment Environment"
        subgraph "Web Application"
            B["Rocket Application Container"]
            C["Web Server Container"]
        end
        D["Database Container"]
    end

    A -- "Develops and Builds" --> B
    B -- "Handles Requests" --> C
    C -- "Serves Application" --> B
    B -- "Stores/Retrieves Data" --> D
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  • Container Diagram Elements:
    • Element:
      • Name: Developer Workstation
      • Type: Container
      • Description: The development environment used by web application developers, including IDE, Rust toolchain, and development tools.
      • Responsibilities: Code development, building, testing, and debugging Rocket applications.
      • Security controls: Secure workstation configuration, access control, antivirus software, code versioning system.
    • Element:
      • Name: Rocket Application Container
      • Type: Container
      • Description: A containerized instance of the Rocket application code, responsible for handling application logic, routing, and business logic. This container runs the compiled Rust application built with the Rocket framework.
      • Responsibilities: Handle HTTP requests, execute application logic, interact with the database, and generate responses.
      • Security controls: Input validation, authorization checks, secure coding practices, dependency management, regular security updates of base image.
    • Element:
      • Name: Web Server Container
      • Type: Container
      • Description: A containerized web server (e.g., Nginx, Apache) that acts as a reverse proxy, handling incoming HTTP/HTTPS requests, serving static files, and forwarding requests to the Rocket Application Container. It can also handle TLS termination.
      • Responsibilities: Receive and route HTTP requests, serve static content, handle TLS termination, load balancing, and potentially act as a WAF.
      • Security controls: Web server hardening, TLS configuration, access control, rate limiting, WAF rules, regular security updates.
    • Element:
      • Name: Database Container
      • Type: Container
      • Description: A containerized database system (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) used by the Rocket application to persist data.
      • Responsibilities: Store and manage application data, provide data persistence, ensure data integrity and availability.
      • Security controls: Database access control, encryption at rest, regular backups, database hardening, vulnerability patching, network segmentation.

DEPLOYMENT

  • Deployment Architecture Options:

    • Option 1: Cloud-based deployment (AWS, GCP, Azure) using container orchestration (Kubernetes) or serverless functions.
    • Option 2: On-premise deployment on virtual machines or bare-metal servers.
    • Option 3: PaaS (Platform as a Service) deployment.

  • Detailed Deployment Architecture (Cloud-based using Kubernetes):

flowchart LR
    subgraph "Cloud Provider (e.g., AWS)"
        subgraph "Kubernetes Cluster"
            A["Load Balancer"]
            subgraph "Worker Node 1"
                B["Web Server Pod"]
                C["Rocket App Pod"]
            end
            subgraph "Worker Node 2"
                D["Web Server Pod"]
                E["Rocket App Pod"]
            end
            F["Database Service"]
        end
        G["Internet"]
    end

    G -- "HTTPS Requests" --> A
    A -- "Routes Requests" --> B & D
    B & D -- "Forwards Requests" --> C & E
    C & E -- "Database Queries" --> F
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  • Deployment Diagram Elements:
    • Element:
      • Name: Internet
      • Type: Environment
      • Description: The public internet from which end users access the web application.
      • Responsibilities: Provide network connectivity for users to access the application.
      • Security controls: External firewall, DDoS protection at the cloud provider level.
    • Element:
      • Name: Load Balancer
      • Type: Infrastructure
      • Description: A cloud load balancer that distributes incoming HTTPS requests across multiple Web Server Pods for high availability and scalability. It also handles TLS termination.
      • Responsibilities: Load balancing, TLS termination, health checks, traffic routing.
      • Security controls: TLS configuration, access control lists, DDoS protection, security monitoring.
    • Element:
      • Name: Web Server Pod
      • Type: Container Instance
      • Description: Instances of the Web Server Container running as pods in the Kubernetes cluster.
      • Responsibilities: Receive requests from the load balancer, serve static content, forward requests to Rocket App Pods.
      • Security controls: Container security hardening, network policies, resource limits, regular security updates.
    • Element:
      • Name: Rocket App Pod
      • Type: Container Instance
      • Description: Instances of the Rocket Application Container running as pods in the Kubernetes cluster.
      • Responsibilities: Handle application logic, process requests, interact with the database.
      • Security controls: Container security hardening, network policies, resource limits, regular security updates, application-level security controls.
    • Element:
      • Name: Database Service
      • Type: Managed Service
      • Description: A managed database service provided by the cloud provider (e.g., AWS RDS, GCP Cloud SQL) for high availability, scalability, and managed backups.
      • Responsibilities: Data persistence, database management, backups, high availability.
      • Security controls: Database access control, encryption at rest and in transit, regular backups, security monitoring, vulnerability patching managed by cloud provider.
    • Element:
      • Name: Kubernetes Cluster
      • Type: Infrastructure
      • Description: A Kubernetes cluster managed by the cloud provider, providing container orchestration and management.
      • Responsibilities: Container orchestration, scaling, health monitoring, resource management.
      • Security controls: Kubernetes security configurations, RBAC (Role-Based Access Control), network policies, security audits, regular updates.

BUILD

flowchart LR
    A["Developer"] --> B{Code Changes};
    B -- "Push to" --> C["Version Control System (e.g., GitHub)"];
    C --> D["CI/CD Pipeline (e.g., GitHub Actions)"];
    D --> E["Build Stage"];
    E --> F["Security Checks (SAST, Dependency Scan, Linting)"];
    F -- "On Success" --> G["Test Stage"];
    F -- "On Failure" --> H["Notify Developers"];
    G --> I["Package/Containerize"];
    I --> J["Artifact Repository (e.g., Container Registry)"];
    J --> K["Deployment Pipeline"];
    K --> L["Deployment Environment"];
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  • Build Process Description:

    • Developer makes code changes and pushes them to a Version Control System (e.g., GitHub).
    • A CI/CD pipeline (e.g., GitHub Actions) is triggered upon code changes.
    • Build Stage: The pipeline starts with a build stage where the Rust code is compiled using cargo build.
    • Security Checks: Automated security checks are performed, including:
      • Static Application Security Testing (SAST) to analyze source code for potential vulnerabilities.
      • Dependency scanning to identify vulnerabilities in third-party crates.
      • Code linting to enforce coding standards and identify potential code quality issues.
    • Test Stage: If security checks pass, the pipeline proceeds to the test stage where unit tests and integration tests are executed.
    • Package/Containerize: If tests pass, the application is packaged into deployable artifacts, such as container images (using Docker).
    • Artifact Repository: The build artifacts (e.g., container images) are pushed to an artifact repository (e.g., Container Registry).
    • Deployment Pipeline: The deployment pipeline is triggered, taking the artifacts from the repository and deploying them to the target Deployment Environment (e.g., Kubernetes cluster).
    • Notifications: Developers are notified of build failures, security vulnerabilities, or deployment issues.

  • Build Diagram Elements:

    • Element:
      • Name: Developer
      • Type: Person
      • Description: Software developer writing and modifying the code.
      • Responsibilities: Writing secure code, committing code changes, and addressing build/security issues.
      • Security controls: Secure coding practices, code review, access control to development environment.
    • Element:
      • Name: Version Control System (e.g., GitHub)
      • Type: Software System
      • Description: A system for tracking and managing changes to the codebase.
      • Responsibilities: Source code management, version control, collaboration, and triggering CI/CD pipelines.
      • Security controls: Access control, branch protection, audit logs, secure communication (HTTPS, SSH).
    • Element:
      • Name: CI/CD Pipeline (e.g., GitHub Actions)
      • Type: Software System
      • Description: An automated pipeline for building, testing, and deploying the application.
      • Responsibilities: Automating build, test, security checks, and deployment processes. Enforcing security gates in the pipeline.
      • Security controls: Secure pipeline configuration, access control, secret management, audit logs.
    • Element:
      • Name: Build Stage
      • Type: Pipeline Stage
      • Description: Stage in the CI/CD pipeline where the Rust code is compiled.
      • Responsibilities: Compiling the code, producing build artifacts.
      • Security controls: Secure build environment, dependency management, build process isolation.
    • Element:
      • Name: Security Checks (SAST, Dependency Scan, Linting)
      • Type: Pipeline Stage
      • Description: Stage in the CI/CD pipeline where automated security checks are performed.
      • Responsibilities: Identifying potential security vulnerabilities and code quality issues.
      • Security controls: SAST tools, dependency scanning tools, linters, vulnerability reporting.
    • Element:
      • Name: Test Stage
      • Type: Pipeline Stage
      • Description: Stage in the CI/CD pipeline where automated tests are executed.
      • Responsibilities: Running unit tests, integration tests, and ensuring code quality.
      • Security controls: Test environment isolation, secure test data management.
    • Element:
      • Name: Package/Containerize
      • Type: Pipeline Stage
      • Description: Stage in the CI/CD pipeline where the application is packaged into deployable artifacts (e.g., container images).
      • Responsibilities: Creating deployable artifacts.
      • Security controls: Secure artifact creation process, image scanning for vulnerabilities.
    • Element:
      • Name: Artifact Repository (e.g., Container Registry)
      • Type: Software System
      • Description: A repository for storing and managing build artifacts (e.g., container images).
      • Responsibilities: Storing and distributing build artifacts.
      • Security controls: Access control, image signing, vulnerability scanning, audit logs.
    • Element:
      • Name: Deployment Pipeline
      • Type: Pipeline Stage
      • Description: Stage in the CI/CD pipeline that deploys the application to the target environment.
      • Responsibilities: Deploying the application to the target environment.
      • Security controls: Secure deployment process, infrastructure as code, deployment environment access control.
    • Element:
      • Name: Deployment Environment
      • Type: Environment
      • Description: The target environment where the application is deployed (e.g., Kubernetes cluster).
      • Responsibilities: Running the deployed application.
      • Security controls: Infrastructure security, runtime security controls, monitoring and logging.

RISK ASSESSMENT

  • Critical business processes:
    • Handling user requests and serving web pages.
    • Processing user data and interactions.
    • Authenticating and authorizing users.
    • Accessing and managing data in the database.
  • Data sensitivity:
    • Potentially sensitive user data (depending on the application built with Rocket). This could include:
      • User credentials (passwords, API keys). Sensitivity: High.
      • Personal Identifiable Information (PII) like names, email addresses, addresses. Sensitivity: Medium to High.
      • Application data, which could be business-critical or confidential. Sensitivity: Varies depending on the application.

QUESTIONS & ASSUMPTIONS

  • Questions:

    • What type of web applications are being built with Rocket framework in the target organization? (e.g., public facing websites, internal applications, APIs).
    • What are the specific compliance requirements for applications built with Rocket (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS)?
    • What is the organization's risk appetite regarding security vulnerabilities in web applications?
    • What existing security infrastructure and tools are already in place in the organization?
    • What is the expected scale and performance requirements for applications built with Rocket?

  • Assumptions:

    • Applications built with Rocket will handle potentially sensitive user data.
    • Security is a high priority for applications built with Rocket.
    • The organization has a need for secure and scalable web applications.
    • Standard web application security best practices are applicable to applications built with Rocket.
    • The deployment environment is a cloud-based Kubernetes cluster for the detailed deployment architecture.