threat-modeling.md

Threat Model Analysis for sergiobenitez/rocket

Threat: Threat: Form Data Validation Bypass (Tampering)

• Description: An attacker submits crafted form data that circumvents the validation logic implemented in a Rocket-specific FromForm implementation. This exploits weaknesses in the developer's custom validation code within the context of Rocket's data binding.
• Impact: Data integrity compromise, potential injection attacks (if the invalid data is used unsafely in a Rocket handler), unexpected application behavior, or crashes directly related to Rocket's processing of the form data.
• Affected Component: FromForm trait implementations (specifically, custom data structures used in Rocket forms), and any Rocket request handlers that rely on the potentially compromised data.
• Risk Severity: High to Critical (depending on the data and its use within Rocket).
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Implement robust validation within FromForm implementations, using appropriate Rust types and validation libraries (e.g., validator), ensuring it integrates correctly with Rocket's request handling.
  • Perform comprehensive input sanitization after Rocket's FromForm processing.
  • Use unit and integration tests to verify the validation logic thoroughly, focusing on how Rocket handles edge cases and boundary conditions.
  • Employ a "defense in depth" approach, validating data at multiple layers, including within Rocket's request handling pipeline.

Threat: Threat: Route Parameter Manipulation (Tampering)

• Description: An attacker modifies Rocket route parameters (e.g., /users/<id>) to access resources they shouldn't, or to trigger unintended behavior within Rocket's routing system. This exploits insufficient validation of parameters within Rocket's request handling.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to data or functionality managed by Rocket routes, information disclosure, potential for further attacks (e.g., if the parameter is used unsafely within a Rocket handler).
• Affected Component: Rocket route handlers that accept parameters (e.g., #[get("/users/<id>")]), and any code within those handlers that uses the parameters without proper validation in the context of Rocket's request processing.
• Risk Severity: High to Critical (depending on the sensitivity of data accessed via Rocket routes).
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Validate and sanitize all route parameters within Rocket request handlers.
  • Use type-safe parameters whenever possible (e.g., id: usize) as supported by Rocket.
  • Implement authorization checks after validating parameters, within the Rocket handler, ensuring access is permitted.
  • Avoid using route parameters directly in operations without proper escaping or parameterization, especially within Rocket's context.

Threat: Threat: Request Guard Bypass (Elevation of Privilege)

• Description: An attacker bypasses the authentication/authorization checks implemented by Rocket request guards. This exploits a flaw in the guard's FromRequest implementation, a misconfiguration within Rocket, or an unhandled edge case in Rocket's request processing.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to Rocket-protected routes and resources, potential for privilege escalation within the Rocket application, data breaches.
• Affected Component: Rocket request guards (types implementing the FromRequest trait), and the Rocket routes they protect.
• Risk Severity: Critical.
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Thoroughly test and review all Rocket request guard implementations, including edge cases and error handling specific to Rocket's request lifecycle.
  • Ensure guards are applied consistently to all relevant Rocket routes.
  • Use a well-defined authorization strategy integrated with Rocket's request handling.
  • Regularly audit the application's authorization logic within the context of Rocket.

Threat: Threat: Fairing-Induced Vulnerabilities (Multiple STRIDE Categories)

• Description: A malicious or poorly written Rocket fairing introduces vulnerabilities. This could involve information disclosure (leaking data via Rocket's logging or response headers), tampering (modifying the Rocket request/response insecurely), elevation of privilege (manipulating the Rocket request context), or denial of service (consuming resources within Rocket).
• Impact: Varies; could range from minor leaks to complete compromise of the Rocket application.
• Affected Component: Rocket fairings (types implementing the Fairing trait), and any code interacting with the request/response after the Rocket fairing is applied.
• Risk Severity: High to Critical (depending on the fairing and the vulnerability).
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Carefully review and audit all Rocket fairing implementations, especially third-party fairings.
  • Limit the scope of changes made by Rocket fairings.
  • Avoid logging sensitive data within Rocket fairings.
  • Ensure fairings don't modify the Rocket request or response in ways that introduce vulnerabilities.
  • Thoroughly test Rocket fairings in isolation and in combination.

Threat: Threat: Unbounded Request Body (Denial of Service)

• Description: An attacker sends a request with a large body, exploiting the lack of proper limits within Rocket's request handling, consuming server resources and causing a denial-of-service.
• Impact: Application unavailability, resource exhaustion, potential crashes due to Rocket's handling of the oversized request.
• Affected Component: Rocket request handlers accepting bodies, and Rocket's configuration related to limits.data.
• Risk Severity: High.
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Configure appropriate request body size limits using Rocket's limits.data configuration option.
  • Use streaming techniques within Rocket for large uploads, processing data in chunks.
  • Implement rate limiting to protect Rocket endpoints.

Threat: Threat: Unbounded Data Structures in FromForm (Denial of Service)

• Description: A Rocket FromForm implementation uses an unbounded data structure (like Vec<String>) without size limits. An attacker submits a form with many values, causing excessive memory allocation within Rocket's form processing and a potential denial-of-service.
• Impact: Application unavailability, resource exhaustion, potential crashes due to Rocket's handling of the form data.
• Affected Component: Rocket FromForm implementations that use unbounded collections.
• Risk Severity: High.
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Use bounded data structures (e.g., fixed-size arrays) whenever possible within Rocket's FromForm implementations.
  • Implement explicit size limits within Rocket FromForm implementations, validating collection sizes.
  • Use a validation library that integrates with Rocket's form handling and supports collection size limits.

Threat: Threat: Configuration Exposure (Information Disclosure)

• Description: The Rocket.toml file is accidentally exposed.
• Impact: Exposure of sensitive configuration data.
• Affected Component: The Rocket.toml file.
• Risk Severity: Critical.
• Mitigation Strategies:
  • Ensure the Rocket.toml file is not placed in a directory accessible from the web root.
  • Use environment variables for sensitive configuration values.
  • Implement file system permissions to restrict access to the configuration file.