Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
59 lines (48 loc) · 4.52 KB

threat-modeling.md

File metadata and controls

59 lines (48 loc) · 4.52 KB

Threat Model Analysis for solana-labs/solana

Threat: Program Logic Errors and Bugs

  • Description: Attacker exploits vulnerabilities in the on-chain program's code (smart contract) by sending crafted transactions. This can lead to unauthorized state changes, fund theft, or program denial of service.
  • Impact: Loss of program funds, critical application functionality failure, complete compromise of program logic.
  • Solana Component Affected: On-Chain Program (Smart Contract), Program Instructions, Accounts.
  • Risk Severity: Critical to High.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Mandatory rigorous security audits by expert Solana security professionals.
    • Extensive testing, including fuzzing and formal verification of critical logic.
    • Secure coding practices and static analysis during development.
    • Implement circuit breakers and emergency program halt mechanisms.

Threat: Program Upgrade Vulnerabilities

  • Description: Attacker compromises the program upgrade authority and deploys a malicious program version. This allows for complete control over the application, including fund theft and data manipulation.
  • Impact: Total application compromise, catastrophic loss of user funds, irreversible damage to application and user trust.
  • Solana Component Affected: On-Chain Program Upgrade Mechanism, Program Upgrade Authority, Accounts.
  • Risk Severity: Critical.
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Extremely secure management of upgrade authority keys (hardware wallets, multi-sig).
    • Mandatory staged upgrades on test networks before mainnet.
    • Timelock mechanisms for upgrades to allow user review and response.
    • Public and auditable upgrade code changes.

Threat: Rent Exemption Exploitation (High Impact Scenario)

  • Description: Attacker creates a massive number of rent-exempt accounts, aiming to bloat the ledger state and degrade Solana network performance, potentially leading to widespread denial of service.
  • Impact: Network-wide performance degradation, potential denial of service for applications and users, increased resource consumption for validators.
  • Solana Component Affected: Solana Runtime, Account Storage, Rent Mechanism.
  • Risk Severity: High (in large-scale exploitation scenarios).
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Careful program design to limit unnecessary account creation.
    • Rate limiting account creation within applications.
    • Network-level monitoring and potential rate limiting at the validator level (Solana core responsibility).

Threat: RPC Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS)

  • Description: Attacker floods public Solana RPC endpoints with requests, overwhelming the service and preventing legitimate application and user access to the Solana network.
  • Impact: Application downtime, inability to interact with Solana, degraded user experience, potential financial losses due to service disruption.
  • Solana Component Affected: Solana RPC API, RPC Infrastructure.
  • Risk Severity: High (for applications critically dependent on RPC availability).
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Robust RPC infrastructure with rate limiting and request throttling.
    • DDoS mitigation services in front of RPC endpoints.
    • Consider private or dedicated RPC nodes for critical applications.

Threat: SDK and Library Vulnerabilities (High Impact Scenario)

  • Description: Critical vulnerabilities in Solana SDKs or libraries are exploited by attackers. This could lead to client-side or server-side code execution, allowing for application compromise or malicious actions on behalf of users.
  • Impact: Application compromise, data breaches, unauthorized actions, potential compromise of user systems interacting with the application.
  • Solana Component Affected: Solana SDKs (JavaScript SDK, Rust SDK, etc.), Application Dependencies.
  • Risk Severity: High (if critical vulnerabilities are present and exploitable).
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Strictly maintain up-to-date SDKs and libraries with latest security patches.
    • Proactive monitoring of security advisories for Solana SDKs and dependencies.
    • Regular security scanning of application dependencies and SDKs.