Security Audit and Penetration Testing for OSSA Specification

Objective

Conduct comprehensive security audit and penetration testing of OSSA specification, reference implementations, and tooling to ensure enterprise security standards are met for 1.0 release.

Scope

Security assessment covering:

1. Schema Security - JSON Schema injection, DoS via deeply nested objects
2. Validation Security - Parser vulnerabilities, XXE attacks, billion laughs
3. Tooling Security - CLI command injection, path traversal, credential leakage
4. API Security - Registry API authentication, authorization, rate limiting
5. Supply Chain Security - Manifest signing, dependency verification

Security Areas

1. Schema-Level Attacks

# Attack Vector 1: Deeply nested object causing stack overflow
ossaVersion: "1.0"
agent:
  id: malicious-agent
  capabilities:
    - name: nested_attack
      input_schema:
        type: object
        properties:
          level1:
            type: object
            properties:
              level2:
                type: object
                # ... 1000 levels deep

Mitigation: Implement max depth limits in validators (default 32 levels)

2. Injection Attacks

# Attack Vector 2: Command injection via runtime.image
ossaVersion: "1.0"
agent:
  id: injection-test
  runtime:
    type: docker
    image: "malicious-image; rm -rf /"

Mitigation: Strict regex validation on image names, allow only trusted registries

3. Path Traversal

# Attack Vector 3: Path traversal via file references
ossaVersion: "1.0"
agent:
  id: path-traversal
  capabilities:
    - name: file_access
      input_schema: "file://../../../../etc/passwd"

Mitigation: Disallow file:// URIs in schema references, require HTTPS

4. Billion Laughs (XML Bomb Equivalent)

# Attack Vector 4: YAML anchors causing exponential expansion
ossaVersion: "1.0"
definitions:
  a: &a ["data", "data", "data", "data"]
  b: &b [*a, *a, *a, *a]
  c: &c [*b, *b, *b, *b]
  # ... continues causing memory exhaustion
agent:
  capabilities: *c

Mitigation: Limit YAML anchor depth and expansion size

5. Credential Leakage

# Attack Vector 5: Secrets in manifest
ossaVersion: "1.0"
agent:
  id: leaked-secrets
  runtime:
    env:
      API_KEY: "sk-prod-abc123..."  # DANGER
      DB_PASSWORD: "super-secret"

Mitigation: Schema validation rejects env vars with secret patterns

Testing Methodology

Automated Security Testing

# Use security scanning tools
npm audit
snyk test
semgrep --config=auto

# OWASP ZAP for API testing
zap-cli quick-scan http://registry.ossa.ai/api

# Fuzzing with custom payloads
python3 fuzzer.py --target ossa-validator --payloads security-payloads.txt

Manual Penetration Testing

1. Schema Validator Testing

   • Inject malformed YAML/JSON
   • Test with extremely large files (>10MB)
   • Unicode/UTF-8 boundary cases
   • Null byte injection

2. CLI Tool Testing

   • Command injection via arguments
   • Path traversal in file operations
   • Privilege escalation attempts
   • Temp file security (race conditions)

3. Registry API Testing

   • Authentication bypass attempts
   • Authorization boundary testing
   • SQL injection (if database-backed)
   • Rate limiting effectiveness
   • CORS misconfiguration

Security Checklist

Specification Security

• Maximum manifest size limits documented (recommended: 1MB)
• Maximum nesting depth defined (recommended: 32 levels)
• Prohibited patterns documented (file://, javascript:, data: URIs)
• Secret detection patterns defined
• Supply chain security guidance (manifest signing)

Validator Security

• Parser DoS protection (timeouts, memory limits)
• XXE prevention in YAML/JSON parsing
• Regex DoS prevention (safe patterns only)
• Error messages don't leak sensitive info
• Temp file handling is secure

CLI Security

• Input sanitization on all commands
• No shell command execution without explicit sanitization
• File permissions checked before write
• Credential handling follows best practices
• Auto-update uses signed releases

API Security

• OAuth 2.1 / OIDC authentication
• Role-based access control (RBAC)
• Rate limiting per endpoint
• Input validation on all endpoints
• Output sanitization (prevent XSS)
• HTTPS only, TLS 1.3+
• Security headers (CSP, HSTS, etc.)

Documentation Security

• Security policy published (SECURITY.md)
• Vulnerability disclosure process
• Security best practices guide
• Threat model documented
• Supply chain security guidance

Acceptance Criteria

• Third-party security audit completed
• Penetration testing report with zero critical findings
• All high/critical vulnerabilities fixed
• Security policy and disclosure process published
• Threat model documented
• Supply chain security measures implemented
• OWASP Top 10 compliance validated
• CWE/SANS Top 25 compliance validated
• CVE process established for specification
• Security advisories mechanism in place

Files to Create

• SECURITY.md - Security policy and disclosure process
• docs/security/threat-model.md - Threat modeling
• docs/security/security-best-practices.md - Security guidelines
• tests/security/ - Security test suite
• .github/SECURITY.md - GitHub security policy

Third-Party Audits

Consider engaging:

• Trail of Bits
• NCC Group
• Bishop Fox
• Cure53 (for parser/validator security)

References

• OWASP Top 10
• CWE/SANS Top 25
• NIST SP 800-53 (Security Controls)
• SLSA Framework (Supply Chain Security)