Security Overview

MotiMate Backend Security Threat Analysis

This analysis identifies potential security threats to the MotiMate backend based on its described features. The goal is to highlight potential weaknesses that could be exploited and to provide a clear understanding of these risks.

1. User Authentication

Threat: Brute-force attacks on login credentials

• Explanation: An attacker might try many different username and password combinations to guess a user's credentials and gain unauthorized access to their account.
• Impact: Unauthorized access to user accounts, potential data breaches, and loss of user trust.
• Likelihood: Medium (common attack vector).
• Mitigation: Implement rate limiting on login attempts, enforce strong password policies (minimum length, complexity), and consider multi-factor authentication in future iterations.
• Implemented: No

Threat: Weak password policies

• Explanation: If users are allowed to choose simple or easily guessable passwords (e.g., "123456" or "password"), their accounts are more vulnerable.
• Impact: Increased risk of unauthorized access.
• Likelihood: High (depends on implemented policy).
• Mitigation: Enforce a minimum password length and complexity requirements during user registration and password reset. Provide feedback to users on password strength.
• Implemented: No

Threat: Insecure storage of credentials

• Explanation: If user passwords are not properly protected in the database (e.g., stored in plain text or using weak hashing algorithms), a database breach could expose all user credentials.
• Impact: Mass compromise of user accounts.
• Likelihood: Low (if standard security practices are followed for backend development).
• Mitigation: Use strong, industry-standard hashing algorithms (like bcrypt or Argon2) with unique salts for storing passwords.
• Implemented: Yes

2. Workout Goal Setting & Commitment/Penalties

Threat: Data manipulation of goals or commitment status

• Explanation: A malicious user might try to directly alter data in the backend to change their set goals or their recorded commitment status to avoid penalties or falsely appear successful.
• Impact: Undermining the integrity of the goal-tracking and accountability system, unfair advantages.
• Likelihood: Medium (requires some technical knowledge to exploit backend data).
• Mitigation: Implement robust server-side validation and authorization checks to ensure only legitimate actions are processed and data cannot be easily manipulated.
• Implemented: No

3. Group Management

Threat: Unauthorized access to group information or membership

• Explanation: A user might try to access details of groups they are not a member of or attempt to join groups without proper authorization.
• Impact: Privacy violations, potential for abuse or spam within groups.
• Likelihood: Low (if access controls are implemented correctly).
• Mitigation: Implement proper authorization mechanisms to control who can access group information and join groups.
• Implemented: Yes (Partial)

4. Group Fund & Payouts

Threat: Fraudulent manipulation of fund balance

• Explanation: An attacker might try to alter the group fund balance or transaction history to their benefit.
• Impact: Financial loss for group members, distrust in the system.
• Likelihood: Low (requires significant backend access or exploitation).
• Mitigation: Implement strict access controls for fund-related operations, maintain a detailed and auditable transaction log, and potentially require multiple approvals for payouts in future iterations.
• Implemented: No

5. Group Chat

Threat: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) through messages

• Explanation: A malicious user could inject code (e.g., JavaScript) into a chat message. When other users view this message, the malicious code could run in their browsers, potentially stealing information or performing actions on their behalf.
• Impact: Account compromise, data theft, spread of malicious content.
• Likelihood: Medium (common vulnerability in web applications with user-generated content).
• Mitigation: Implement proper input sanitization and output encoding of all chat messages to prevent the execution of malicious scripts in users' browsers.
• Implemented: No

Threat: Storage and privacy of chat messages

• Explanation: Chat messages might contain sensitive information. If not stored securely, they could be accessed by unauthorized individuals in case of a data breach.
• Impact: Privacy violations, potential legal issues.
• Likelihood: Low (if standard security practices for data storage are followed).
• Mitigation: Encrypt sensitive chat data at rest and in transit. Implement appropriate access controls to ensure only authorized users can view chat messages.
• Implemented: No

6. Workout Logging (with Photo Sharing)

Threat: Unauthorized access to or modification of workout logs and photos

• Explanation: Users might try to view or alter workout logs and photos that belong to other users.
• Impact: Privacy violations, manipulation of progress tracking.
• Likelihood: Low (if proper authorization is implemented).
• Mitigation: Implement strict access controls to ensure users can only access and modify their own workout data and photos.
• Implemented: Yes (Partial)

General Backend Concerns

Threat: Basic Injection Attacks (e.g., SQL Injection)

• Explanation: If the backend code doesn't properly handle user input when interacting with the database, an attacker could inject malicious SQL code to read, modify, or delete data.
• Impact: Data breaches, data corruption, potential for complete server takeover.
• Likelihood: Medium (depends on the framework and coding practices).
• Mitigation: Use NestJS's built-in features for database interaction (like TypeORM) that help prevent SQL injection. Always sanitize and validate user input.
• Implemented: Yes

Risk Assessment Overview

Threat	Impact	Likelihood	Mitigation	Implemented
Brute-force attacks on login credentials	High	Medium	Implement rate limiting, enforce strong password policies, consider MFA (future).	No
Weak password policies	Medium	High	Enforce minimum length and complexity requirements.	No
Insecure storage of credentials	Critical	Low	Use strong hashing algorithms (Argon2) with salts.	Yes
Data manipulation of goals or commitment status	Medium	Medium	Implement robust server-side validation and authorization.	No
Unauthorized access to group information or membership	Low	Low	Implement proper authorization mechanisms for group access.	Yes (Partial)
Fraudulent manipulation of fund balance	High	Low	Implement strict access controls and auditable transaction logs.	No
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) through messages	High	Medium	Implement input sanitization and output encoding of chat messages.	No
Storage and privacy of chat messages	Medium	Low	Encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit, implement access controls.	No
Unauthorized access to/modification of workout data/photos	Medium	Low	Implement strict access controls for user-specific data.	Yes (Partial)
Basic Injection Attacks (e.g., SQL Injection)	Critical	Medium	Use NestJS's ORM features, sanitize and validate user input.	Yes