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attack-surface.md

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Attack Surface Analysis for realm/realm-cocoa

Attack Surface: Data Injection/Modification via File System Access (Weak or Absent Realm Encryption)

  • Description: Unauthorized modification of sensitive data within the Realm database file by directly accessing the file system, exploiting the absence of or weaknesses in Realm's encryption.
  • How Realm Cocoa Contributes: Realm Cocoa's data persistence mechanism relies on a file. If encryption is not enabled or is weak, this file becomes a vulnerable target for direct manipulation, bypassing application-level security controls.
  • Example: An attacker gains access to the device's file system (e.g., through malware or physical access) and, because Realm encryption is disabled or uses a trivially guessable key, directly modifies user credentials or financial data stored in the Realm file.
  • Impact: Critical: Complete compromise of data integrity and confidentiality, unauthorized access to sensitive information, potential for severe financial loss or privacy breaches, application logic bypass leading to further exploits.
  • Risk Severity: Critical
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Mandatory Strong Realm Encryption: Enforce Realm encryption using a robust, randomly generated key stored securely in the operating system's keychain or secure enclave. Treat encryption as a fundamental security requirement, not an optional feature.
    • Secure Key Management: Implement secure key generation, storage, and retrieval practices. Avoid hardcoding keys or storing them in easily accessible locations.
    • File System Access Restrictions: Adhere to platform-specific security guidelines to minimize the application's file system footprint and restrict access to the Realm file to the application process only.

Attack Surface: Data Integrity Issues due to Concurrency Bugs leading to Critical Data Corruption

  • Description: Corruption or irreversible inconsistencies in critical application data arising from race conditions and improper handling of concurrent access to the Realm database, specifically impacting core application functionality or data integrity.
  • How Realm Cocoa Contributes: Realm Cocoa's concurrency model, while powerful, requires careful management. Flaws in application code handling concurrent Realm transactions can lead to race conditions that corrupt vital data structures within the Realm database, impacting application stability and data reliability.
  • Example: In a financial application, concurrent transactions updating account balances due to poorly synchronized background processes lead to incorrect balance calculations and transaction history corruption within the Realm database, resulting in financial discrepancies and loss of trust.
  • Impact: High: Significant data integrity compromise affecting core application functionality, potential for business logic errors leading to financial or operational losses, application instability and unpredictable behavior, loss of user trust.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Strict Concurrency Control and Transaction Management: Implement rigorous concurrency control using Realm's transaction mechanisms. Ensure all write operations are performed within write transactions and properly synchronized across threads.
    • Thorough Concurrency Code Reviews and Testing: Conduct in-depth code reviews specifically focused on concurrency aspects of Realm usage. Implement comprehensive unit and integration tests to identify and eliminate race conditions under heavy concurrent load.
    • Utilize Realm's Thread-Safe APIs Correctly: Adhere strictly to Realm's documented best practices for thread safety and concurrency. Avoid sharing Realm instances across threads without proper synchronization.
    • Consider using Realm's Actor Model (if applicable and beneficial for application architecture): Explore if Realm's actor model or similar concurrency patterns can simplify concurrency management and reduce the risk of race conditions in specific application scenarios.

Attack Surface: Realm File Corruption leading to Application Unusability and Data Loss

  • Description: Severe damage to the Realm database file rendering the application unusable and leading to irreversible data loss, impacting critical application functions and user experience.
  • How Realm Cocoa Contributes: Realm Cocoa's reliance on a specific file format means corruption can be catastrophic. While general file corruption is a risk for any application, the complexity of Realm's file structure can make recovery challenging if corruption occurs.
  • Example: A critical system crash or power outage occurs during a Realm write transaction, leading to corruption of the Realm file's internal structures. Upon application restart, Realm fails to initialize, preventing the application from launching or accessing any user data, effectively rendering it unusable and causing permanent data loss if backups are not available.
  • Impact: High: Application denial of service, complete data loss impacting user experience and potentially business operations, loss of user trust and reputational damage, potential need for complete application reinstall and data recovery procedures.
  • Risk Severity: High
  • Mitigation Strategies:
    • Robust Error Handling and Recovery: Implement comprehensive error handling to detect Realm file corruption early. Design recovery mechanisms to attempt to repair or restore the Realm database from backups or previous consistent states.
    • Regular Automated Backups: Implement automated and frequent backups of the Realm database to a secure location. Ensure backup and restore procedures are thoroughly tested and reliable.
    • File System Integrity Monitoring (Advanced): For highly critical applications, consider implementing file system integrity checks to detect unauthorized modifications or corruption proactively.
    • Graceful Degradation (if possible): Design the application to gracefully degrade functionality if Realm becomes unavailable due to corruption, rather than crashing completely. Provide informative error messages to the user and guide them through potential recovery steps.