Hackers of India

Serverless Siege: AWS Lambda Pentesting

By  Anjali Singh Shukla   Divyanshu Shukla  on 07 Aug 2023 @ C0c0n


Presentation Material

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The speaker discusses common security threats and vulnerabilities in serverless applications, along with remediation strategies. Here’s a summarized version of the content:

1. Identity and Purpose: The importance of securely storing sensitive variables and environment variables using solutions like AWS KMS, HashiCorp, or Vault.

2. XML External Entity Attack: A vulnerability that occurs when an application uses XML and DTD (Document Type Definition). To prevent this, disable DTD expansion or use a parser that prevents external entity attacks.

3. Broken Access Control: Ensure proper authorization and authentication in serverless applications. Limit access to specific resources, like S3 buckets, instead of providing full permissions.

4. Security Misconfigurations: Avoid misconfiguring AWS services, such as unencrypted databases, which can lead to data breaches. Use open-source tools like CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management) to scan for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.

5. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): Prevent client-side attacks by ensuring that user input is properly sanitized and validated.

6. Insecure Deserialization: Avoid using libraries like Pickle, which can lead to deserialization attacks. Instead, use JSON or YAML with safe loading mechanisms.

7. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities: Be aware of vulnerabilities in third-party libraries and components, such as Log4j. Regularly update and patch these dependencies to prevent exploitation.

8. Insufficient Logging and Monitoring: Use native solutions like CloudTrail, X-Ray, and real-time alerting to monitor serverless applications and detect potential security issues.

The speaker also mentions the importance of source code review, static code analysis, and remediation strategies for addressing these vulnerabilities in serverless applications.