Interface with hosted security infrastructure

[rfk]

We should rate-limit the number of pairing attempts that can be made from any given IP address within a certain amount of time.

I don't have strong opinions on how to implement this. We could integrate with the existing fxa-customs-server, which would have the advantage of blocking IP addresses that have been behaving badly in other ways (such as too many signin attempts). But that introduces more coupling between this service and the rest of the FxA stack.

[rfk]

(Doing this accurately depends on https://github.com/mozilla-services/pairsona/issues/16)

[rfk]

@jrconlin do you have any ideas in mind for how to apply rate-limiting for this service? Would you try to do it internally (maybe storing data into a shared redis instance?) or by talking to an external rate-limiting service?

[shane-tomlinson]

that introduces more coupling between this service and the rest of the FxA stack.

If the customs server were viewed along the lines of similar to 'iprepd', it's a dependency, but maybe one that's worthwhile.

[jrconlin]

sigh. if secops ever does build a abuse tracking and mitigation system, I really hope they name it Godot.

@rfk No, I have no ideas or preferences for what sort of mitigation system we put in place. I suppose we should probably define what "abusive" behavior is. We've already got a few things in place for that, but I also wonder if in this time of bot farms and IPv6 addresses, if tracking per origin IP is reasonable?

FWIW, i'd kinda/sorta prefer a centralized abuse management system to keep us from re-inventing wheels, as well as preempt larger attacks.

[rfk]

i'd kinda/sorta prefer a centralized abuse management system to keep us from re-inventing wheels, as well as preempt larger attacks.

Me too! secops recently released their "iprepd" service for checking IP reputation, which isn't rate-limiting but is a step in that direction.

[rfk]

We could integrate with the existing fxa-customs-server

Actually, this is not that easy in practice. We currently run fxa-customs-server as a "sidecar" service on the fxa-auth-server webheads, meaning that it's only available over localhost and not exposed to the broader network.

We could make a public-facing instance, but would need to figure out the security story for API calls, maybe using server-to-server secret keys.

I'm going to take this to the mailing list in order to loop others in on the discussion.

[shane-tomlinson]

We could make a public-facing instance, but would need to figure out the security story for API calls, maybe using server-to-server secret keys.

It could also be available only behind a VPN so not any goon could try to DDOS the service, even so server-to-server shared keys seems a responsible additional measure.

[rfk]

This wasn't actually fixed in #31 in the end, re-opening.

[jrconlin]

I thought that we agreed that we would use an outside system in order to restrict IP access? Doesn't that remove the need (or even the ability) for our server to do any sort of IP control?

[rfk]

IIUC, we may still need to (1) parse and interpret a header provided by the security infrastructure, possibly rejecting requests as a result, and (2) log specific events about app-level misbehaviour to be interpreted by this infrastructure. I'll update the bug title accordingly.

[jrconlin]

+1

Although I wonder if we should close this bug (and all the now invalid comments) and just start a new issue that talks about just doing that stuff.

[rfk]

Sure, that makes sense; please file one as you see fit :-)

[jrconlin]

Closing in favor of #34