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Security Vulnerability Assessment Report

Security Vulnerability Assessment Report​

Product: Datastripes Date: July 28, 2025 Prepared For: Clients of Data

1. Executive Summary​

This document provides a comprehensive security vulnerability assessment of the Datastripes application. Our commitment to security is paramount, and this report outlines the various security measures implemented to protect your data and ensure the integrity and availability of our services.

Overall, the application demonstrates a strong security posture, particularly in preventing unauthorized data manipulation and mitigating server-side request forgery (SSRF) and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Critical vulnerabilities, such as SQL Injection for data modification and direct deletion of shared resources, have been addressed with robust controls.

However, as with any complex system handling arbitrary user inputs and interacting with external services, certain residual risks and areas for continuous improvement remain. This report details our current mitigations and highlights areas where further enhancements are being considered or are inherent to the application's functionality.

2. Detailed Vulnerability Assessment​

2.1. SQL Injection​

  • Description: SQL Injection (SQLi) allows an attacker to interfere with the queries that an application makes to its database. This can result in unauthorized data access, modification, deletion, or even full control over the database server.
  • Applicability: The application allows users to submit custom SQL queries for execution against their connected databases.
  • Mitigation Strategies Implemented:
    • Strict Query Filtering (isQueryPotentiallyMalicious): The backend employs a robust filtering mechanism that blacklists dangerous SQL keywords and patterns (e.g., update, delete, insert, drop, create, alter, truncate). It also whitelists specific query types like SELECT and WITH clauses.
    • Transactional Execution with Rollback: All user-submitted SQL queries are executed within a database transaction. If any unauthorized data modification or deletion attempt is detected (or even if the query fails), the entire transaction is immediately rolled back, ensuring no permanent changes are made to the user's database.
  • Current Security Posture/Residual Risk:
    • Posture: Very Strong against data manipulation, deletion, and schema alteration. The rollback mechanism provides a highly effective safety net for these types of attacks.
    • Residual Risk:
      • Unauthorized Data Exfiltration: While data modification is prevented, a highly sophisticated SQLi payload might still potentially bypass the blacklist to extract sensitive data if the SELECT query is crafted maliciously.
      • Denial of Service (DoS): Extremely complex SELECT queries (e.g., recursive queries, very large joins) could still be used to overload the user's database server, causing a DoS for their database, even without modifying data.

2.2. Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)​

  • Description: SSRF allows an attacker to induce the server-side application to make HTTP requests to an arbitrary domain specified by the attacker. This can enable scanning of internal networks, accessing cloud metadata services, or using the server as an unwitting proxy for attacks.
  • Applicability: The application explicitly provides functionality for users to connect to their chosen external URLs via a backend proxy (URLNode leveraging /proxy endpoint) and to connect to external database hosts (SQLNode).
  • Mitigation Strategies Implemented:
    • IP Address Blacklisting (resolveAndValidateHost): Before any outgoing request is made (either by the proxy endpoint or for database connections), the target hostname is resolved to its IP address(es). These IP addresses are then strictly validated against a comprehensive blacklist of private, loopback (127.0.0.0/8, ::1), and cloud-specific link-local (169.254.0.0/16) IP ranges. Any attempt to connect to these forbidden IPs is blocked.
    • Redirect Prevention (redirect: 'manual'): The fetch API calls in the backend proxy are configured to explicitly prevent automatic following of HTTP redirects. This stops an attacker from redirecting a legitimate initial request to a forbidden internal resource.
    • Header Filtering: The backend proxy filters out sensitive or potentially dangerous HTTP headers (e.g., Cookie, Authorization, X-Forwarded-For) that could be injected by a user.
  • Current Security Posture/Residual Risk:
    • Posture: Significantly Improved. The implemented IP blacklisting and redirect prevention are crucial for mitigating the direct impact of SSRF on our infrastructure. The ability for users to connect to arbitrary external public URLs is balanced with strong internal protection.
    • Residual Risk:
      • Sophisticated Bypass Attempts: While robust, blacklisting can potentially be bypassed by highly determined attackers using advanced techniques (e.g., DNS rebinding attacks, or if the attacker can find a public IP that proxies to an internal resource).
      • Lack of Whitelisting (if applicable): For scenarios where connections are expected only to a very specific set of external services, a strict whitelist of allowed public IP ranges or domains would offer even greater security than a blacklist alone.

2.3. Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) / Broken Access Control​

  • Description: IDOR occurs when an application provides direct access to objects based on user-supplied input, allowing an attacker to bypass authorization checks and access or modify resources they are not authorized for. Broken Access Control refers to flaws in how access permissions are enforced.
  • Applicability: User-specific data such as flows, nodes, and secrets stored in Firestore, and shared resources like "archs" and "plugins".
  • Mitigation Strategies Implemented:
    • Firestore Security Rules: Access to user-specific data (e.g., /flows/{flowId}, /nodes/{nodeId}, /secrets/{secretId}) is strictly enforced via Firestore Security Rules, ensuring that only authenticated users whose UID matches the customer field of the resource can read or modify their data (request.auth.uid == resource.data.customer).
    • Client-Side Secret Encryption: User-specific database credentials and other secrets are encrypted client-side using the user's UID as part of the encryption key derivation before being stored in IndexedDB and transmitted.
    • Firestore Rules Correction for /archs: The critical IDOR allowing any authenticated user to delete any document in /archs has been corrected. Access to these resources is now appropriately restricted based on ownership or predefined permissions.
  • Current Security Posture/Residual Risk:
    • Posture: Strong for User-Specific Data. The combination of Firestore security rules and client-side encryption provides robust protection for individual user data and secrets. The /archs deletion vulnerability has been fixed.
    • Residual Risk:
      • /plugins Read Access: The current Firestore rule allow read: if request.auth != null; for /plugins permits any authenticated user to read any document in this collection. If these plugins contain proprietary or sensitive information not intended for public access among users, this constitutes an information disclosure risk.

2.4. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)​

  • Description: XSS allows an attacker to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users. This can lead to session hijacking, data theft, defacement, or redirection to malicious sites.
  • Applicability: User-controlled input (e.g., SQL query results, fetched external URL data, error messages, node labels, markdown content) is rendered into the DOM.
  • Mitigation Strategies Implemented:
    • React's Automatic Escaping: React automatically escapes string values rendered within JSX curly braces ({variable}), preventing direct injection of HTML/scripts.
    • DOMPurify for dangerouslySetInnerHTML: When rendering arbitrary HTML content using dangerouslySetInnerHTML, the DOMPurify library is consistently used to sanitize the HTML, stripping out malicious scripts and tags.
    • ReactMarkdown skipHtml: The ReactMarkdown component is configured to skipHtml, ensuring that raw HTML tags within markdown are ignored rather than rendered, thus preventing XSS through markdown content.
  • Current Security Posture/Residual Risk:
    • Posture: Good. The primary mechanisms for XSS prevention are correctly employed.
    • Residual Risk:
      • Comprehensive Coverage: Requires diligent application of these mitigations across all points where user-controlled or external data is displayed in the frontend, particularly for dynamically loaded content, error messages (e.g., from Log objects), and any raw data displays that might inadvertently be rendered as HTML.

2.5. Insecure Deserialization​

  • Description: This vulnerability arises when untrusted data is deserialized into an object, and the deserialization process can be manipulated to execute arbitrary code or alter application logic.
  • Applicability: The frontend (URLNode.tsx) parses user-provided JSON strings for request headers and body using JSON.parse().
  • Mitigation Strategies Implemented: JSON.parse() is used for deserialization.
  • Current Security Posture/Residual Risk:
    • Posture: Very Low Risk for Code Execution. In JavaScript, JSON.parse() is inherently safe against arbitrary code execution attacks, unlike some other languages' deserialization mechanisms.
    • Residual Risk:
      • Denial of Service (DoS): Parsing extremely large or deeply nested JSON structures could consume excessive memory or CPU resources, potentially leading to a DoS for the server or browser.

2.6. General Input Validation and Sanitization​

  • Description: Insufficient validation and sanitization of general user inputs (beyond specific vulnerabilities like SQLi or XSS) can lead to unexpected application behavior, errors, or other security flaws.
  • Applicability: Various user inputs such as grid sizes, column names, general text fields, etc.
  • Mitigation Strategies Implemented: Specific strong validation for SQL queries and URL hostnames.
  • Current Security Posture/Residual Risk:
    • Posture: Area for Continuous Improvement. While critical inputs are well-handled, a holistic approach to input validation for all user-provided data is beneficial.
    • Residual Risk: Lack of strict length limits, type checking, or format validation for non-critical inputs could lead to application-level errors or unexpected behavior.

2.7. Sensitive Data Handling (Credentials)​

  • Description: Involves how sensitive data, such as database credentials, is stored, processed, and transmitted.
  • Applicability: Database connection strings containing user credentials.
  • Mitigation Strategies Implemented:
    • Client-Side Encryption: Database credentials are encrypted client-side using a key derived from the user's unique ID before storage or transmission.
    • Secure Storage: Encrypted credentials are stored in IndexedDB, which adheres to the browser's Same-Origin Policy.
    • Generic Error Messages: Backend error messages for proxy and database operations are generic, preventing the exposure of sensitive internal details.
  • Current Security Posture/Residual Risk:
    • Posture: Good. Client-side encryption and secure storage practices reduce the risk of credentials being exposed in transit or at rest on the server.
    • Residual Risk:
      • Client-Side Compromise: If an end-user's device or browser environment is compromised (e.g., via advanced malware or browser extensions), their locally stored encrypted credentials could potentially be targeted.
      • Cryptographic Strength: Relies on the strength and proper implementation of the encryptToken/decryptToken functions and key management (not fully detailed in provided snippets).
      • HTTPS Assumption: Assumes all communication between frontend and backend is secured via HTTPS/TLS.

2.8. Denial of Service (DoS) - General​

  • Description: DoS attacks aim to make a service unavailable to its legitimate users by overwhelming it with requests or resource-intensive operations.
  • Applicability: Can arise from complex SQL queries, large input payloads, or excessive requests.
  • Mitigation Strategies Implemented: SQL query filtering, input size limits (implicit in some cases).
  • Current Security Posture/Residual Risk:
    • Posture: Mitigated against certain types of DoS (e.g., destructive SQLi).
    • Residual Risk:
      • Complex SELECT Queries: As noted under SQL Injection, complex read-only queries can still overload databases.
      • Large Payloads: Large JSON inputs to the proxy or other endpoints could consume excessive memory.
      • Connection Exhaustion: Without proper rate limiting or connection pooling, a high volume of requests could exhaust server resources.

3. Conclusion​

Datastripes is built with security as a core consideration, implementing multiple layers of defense against common web vulnerabilities. Significant progress has been made in strengthening protections against SQL Injection (especially for data manipulation), SSRF, and XSS. The correction of the critical IDOR vulnerability regarding /archs further demonstrates our proactive approach to security.

We are committed to continuous security improvement. We recommend ongoing vigilance and potential future enhancements in the areas of detailed access control for shared resources (specifically /plugins if not intended for public read access), more granular whitelisting for external connections, and the implementation of rate limiting at the API gateway level to protect against general DoS attacks.

We will continue to conduct regular security reviews and penetration testing to ensure the ongoing integrity and security of the platform.