Attack Surface: 1. Data Poisoning (Ingestion Channel)
Description: Malicious or manipulated data is injected into the Sonic search index via the ingestion channel.
How Sonic Contributes: Sonic provides the ingestion channel (PUSH mode) as the primary mechanism for adding data to the index. Its relatively simple protocol and lack of built-in, granular input validation make it a target.
Example:
* An attacker injects a large number of documents containing excessively long strings in a specific field, designed to consume excessive memory during indexing or querying.
* An attacker injects documents with specially crafted terms designed to trigger edge-case bugs in Sonic's text processing or indexing logic.
Impact:
* Denial of Service (DoS)
* Search Result Manipulation
* Index Corruption (less likely, but possible)
* Resource Exhaustion
Risk Severity: Critical
Mitigation Strategies:
* Authentication and Authorization (Sonic & Network): Protect the ingestion channel with a strong, unique password (Sonic's password setting). Use network-level access controls (firewalls, security groups) to restrict access to the ingestion port to only authorized clients.
* Monitoring (Sonic & Application): Monitor Sonic's logs and resource usage (CPU, memory, disk I/O) for anomalies. Monitor the application's ingestion process for unusual activity (e.g., spikes in data volume, unexpected data patterns).
* Rate Limiting (Network & Application): Implement rate limiting to prevent an attacker from flooding the ingestion channel. This can be done at the network level (e.g., firewall rules) and/or within the application pushing data.
Attack Surface: 2. Denial of Service (Query Channel)
Description: An attacker overwhelms Sonic with a large number of queries, or sends complex queries designed to consume excessive resources.
How Sonic Contributes: Sonic provides the query channel (QUERY mode) for searching the index. While it has some built-in limits, it's susceptible to resource exhaustion attacks.
Example:
* An attacker sends thousands of concurrent search requests.
* An attacker crafts queries with very long search terms or many wildcard characters, forcing Sonic to perform extensive matching operations.
Impact: Sonic becomes unresponsive or crashes, preventing legitimate users from accessing search functionality.
Risk Severity: High
Mitigation Strategies:
* Rate Limiting (Network & Application): Implement strict rate limiting on the query channel. This is the primary defense. Consider using different rate limits for different users or API keys.
* Sonic Configuration: Review and adjust Sonic's built-in limits (e.g., query_limit_terms, query_limit_results) if necessary.
* Resource Monitoring (Sonic): Monitor Sonic's CPU, memory, and disk I/O usage. Set up alerts for high resource utilization.
Attack Surface: 3. Unauthorized Access (Control Channel)
Description: An attacker gains access to Sonic's control channel and issues unauthorized commands.
How Sonic Contributes: Sonic provides a control channel for administrative tasks (e.g., flushing the index, consolidating data, changing the password).
Example:
* An attacker gains access to the control channel and issues the FLUSH command, deleting all data in the index.
* An attacker changes the Sonic password, locking out legitimate administrators.
Impact:
* Data Loss
* Denial of Service
* Loss of Control over Sonic Instance
Risk Severity: High
Mitigation Strategies:
* Strong Authentication (Sonic): Use a strong, unique password for the control channel (Sonic's password setting). This password should be different from any passwords used for other services.
* Network Segmentation (Network): Restrict access to the control channel port to only trusted internal networks or specific IP addresses using firewalls or security groups. Ideally, the control channel should not be exposed to the public internet.
* Regular Password Rotation (Sonic): Change the control channel password regularly.
Attack Surface: 4. Software Vulnerabilities (Sonic Itself)
Description: Exploitable bugs in Sonic's code (written in Rust) or its dependencies.
How Sonic Contributes: As with any software, Sonic's codebase may contain vulnerabilities.
Example:
* A buffer overflow vulnerability in Sonic's text processing logic could be exploited to cause a crash or potentially execute arbitrary code.
* A vulnerability in one of Sonic's dependencies could be exploited to compromise the Sonic instance.
Impact: Varies depending on the vulnerability, but could range from Denial of Service to Remote Code Execution (RCE).
Risk Severity: High to Critical (depending on the specific vulnerability)
Mitigation Strategies:
* Keep Sonic Updated (Operational): Regularly update to the latest version of Sonic to benefit from security patches. Monitor the Sonic GitHub repository for security advisories and releases.
* Dependency Management (Development & Operational): Regularly review and update Sonic's dependencies using cargo update (for Rust projects). Use tools like cargo audit to identify known vulnerabilities in dependencies.
* Fuzzing (Development): Use fuzzing techniques (e.g., with cargo fuzz) to test Sonic's robustness against unexpected inputs and identify potential vulnerabilities.