# Authorization Analysis Report

## 1. Executive Summary

- **Analysis Status:** Complete  
- **Key Outcome:** This application has **NO AUTHORIZATION SYSTEM WHATSOEVER**. There are zero authorization vulnerabilities to analyze because no access controls, role checks, or permission systems exist at any layer.
- **Purpose of this Document:** This report documents the complete absence of authorization controls and explains why no authorization exploitation queue entries were generated.

## 2. Critical Finding: Complete Absence of Authorization

### Application Security Posture

After comprehensive analysis of the application's source code, configuration files, and architectural patterns, I can definitively confirm:

**ZERO AUTHORIZATION CONTROLS EXIST**

This includes:
- **No Authentication System:** No login, sessions, JWT tokens, API keys, or any identity verification
- **No User Model:** No concept of users, accounts, or identities
- **No Role System:** No admin/user/guest roles or privilege levels
- **No Permission Checks:** No code validating "can user X access resource Y"
- **No Access Control Middleware:** No decorators, guards, or interceptors
- **No Resource Ownership:** No binding of resources to specific users

### What This Means for Authorization Analysis

The reconnaissance deliverable explicitly stated in Section 8:

> **NOT APPLICABLE** - This section is designed for applications with authorization controls. Since this application has **NO AUTHORIZATION WHATSOEVER**, there are no authorization vulnerabilities to analyze.

As the Authorization Analysis Specialist, my role is to find logical flaws in authorization systems. When no authorization system exists, there are no authorization vulnerabilities in the classical sense:

- **No Horizontal Privilege Escalation:** Cannot access "other users' data" when users don't exist
- **No Vertical Privilege Escalation:** Cannot escalate to "admin" when roles don't exist  
- **No IDOR (Insecure Direct Object Reference):** Cannot bypass ownership checks when ownership doesn't exist
- **No Context/Workflow Bypasses:** Cannot skip authentication steps when there are no authentication steps

### Code Evidence

**Flask Application (`app/app.py`):**
```python
from flask import Flask, redirect, url_for, render_template
import requests
import json

app = Flask(__name__)
# NO app.secret_key configured (required for sessions)
# NO Flask-Login imported
# NO authentication decorators

@app.route('/app')
def home():
    # NO @login_required decorator
    # NO permission checks
    # NO user context
    # Directly executes without any authorization
    api = requests.get('http://nginx/api/get').text
    script = requests.get(api).text
    eval_result = eval(json.loads(script)["script"])
    return render_template('index.html', ...)
```

**Dependencies Analysis:**
- `app/requirements.txt`: Only Flask==3.0.3, requests
- `api/requirements.txt`: Only Flask==3.0.3
- **No authentication libraries:** No Flask-Login, Flask-JWT-Extended, Flask-HTTPAuth, PyJWT, Authlib, etc.

**NGINX Configuration (`nginx/nginx.conf`):**
- No `auth_basic` directives
- No `auth_request` validation
- No IP whitelisting
- All 11 endpoints publicly accessible

## 3. All Endpoints Are Publicly Accessible

The following 11 endpoints are all accessible without any authentication or authorization:

| Endpoint | Method | Function | Authorization |
|----------|--------|----------|---------------|
| `/` | GET | Serve static HTML | None - Public |
| `/healthcheck` | GET | NGINX health check | None - Public |
| `/api/set` | GET/POST | Set API URL (SSRF vector) | None - Public |
| `/api/get` | GET | Retrieve API URL | None - Public |
| `/name/set` | GET/POST | Set name parameter | None - Public |
| `/name/get` | GET | Retrieve name parameter | None - Public |
| `/app` | GET | Execute eval() (RCE vector) | None - Public |
| `/app/healthcheck` | GET | Flask app health check | None - Public |
| `/` (8081) | GET | Flask API welcome | None - Public |
| `/healthcheck` (8081) | GET | Flask API health check | None - Public |
| `/script` | GET | Return default script | None - Public |

**Critical Security Impact:**
- Any anonymous attacker can execute arbitrary Python code via `/api/set` → `/app` chain
- Any anonymous attacker can modify application configuration
- No audit trail of who performs malicious actions
- No ability to revoke access or block attackers

## 4. Why No Authorization Exploitation Queue Entries

The authorization exploitation queue is designed to document **logical flaws in existing authorization systems**. It answers questions like:

- "Can user A access user B's data?" (horizontal)
- "Can regular user escalate to admin?" (vertical)  
- "Can I skip payment step in checkout?" (context/workflow)

When **no authorization system exists**, these questions are meaningless:
- There is no "user A" or "user B" to distinguish
- There is no "regular user" vs "admin" distinction
- There are no workflow states to validate

**Therefore, the exploitation queue is empty** - not because the application is secure, but because authorization vulnerabilities require an authorization system to exist first.

## 5. Relationship to Other Vulnerability Classes

While this application has no authorization vulnerabilities, it has **CRITICAL vulnerabilities in other categories**:

### SSRF (Server-Side Request Forgery)
- **Endpoint:** `/api/set?url=<attacker_url>`
- **Impact:** Allows attacker to control server-side HTTP requests
- **Handler:** SSRF Exploitation Specialist

### RCE (Remote Code Execution)  
- **Endpoint:** `/app` (after controlling API URL)
- **Impact:** Arbitrary Python code execution via `eval()`
- **Handler:** Injection Exploitation Specialist

### XSS (Cross-Site Scripting)
- **Endpoint:** `/name/set?name=<payload>`
- **Impact:** Stored XSS in template rendering
- **Handler:** XSS Exploitation Specialist

**These vulnerabilities are even more severe BECAUSE there's no authorization** - any anonymous attacker can exploit them without needing to bypass access controls first.

## 6. Architectural Observations

### Design Pattern: No Security Boundaries

The application follows a "trust everything" model:
- **NGINX layer:** Forwards all requests without validation
- **Flask layer:** Processes all requests without authentication  
- **Service-to-service:** No mutual authentication between containers
- **External requests:** No validation of outbound request destinations

### Missing Security Components

A properly secured application would have:
1. **Authentication Layer:** Session management, JWT validation, or API keys
2. **Authorization Middleware:** Decorators like `@login_required`, `@admin_required`
3. **User Context:** `current_user` object available in request handlers
4. **Permission Checks:** Explicit validation before sensitive operations
5. **Resource Ownership:** Database records linked to user IDs with ownership validation

**None of these exist in this application.**

## 7. Recommendations for Remediation

If this were a production application (it's a CTF challenge), the following authorization controls should be implemented:

### Immediate Priorities:
1. **Add Authentication:** Implement Flask-Login for session-based authentication
2. **Add Role-Based Access Control:** Define user/admin roles with decorators
3. **Add Permission Checks:** Validate user permissions before sensitive operations
4. **Add Ownership Validation:** Ensure users can only access their own resources
5. **Add Session Security:** Configure secure cookies (HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite)

### For API Endpoints:
- Implement JWT or API key authentication
- Add rate limiting per authenticated user
- Validate authorization for each endpoint

### For Administrative Functions:
- Restrict `/api/set` to admin role only
- Add audit logging for configuration changes
- Implement multi-factor authentication for privileged operations

## 8. Conclusion

**Finding:** This application has **NO AUTHORIZATION SYSTEM**.

**Implication for Authorization Analysis:** There are **zero authorization vulnerabilities** to document because authorization vulnerabilities require an authorization system to exist first.

**Implication for Overall Security:** The **complete absence of authorization** is itself a critical security failure, but it manifests as:
- **Authentication bypass** (no authentication to bypass)
- **Unrestricted access** to all functionality (handled by other specialists)
- **No privilege separation** (all users have all privileges)

**Authorization Exploitation Queue Status:** Empty (0 vulnerabilities) - not because the application is secure, but because there is no authorization system to have vulnerabilities.

**Handoff to Exploitation Phase:** The exploitation specialists for SSRF, RCE, and XSS will handle the critical vulnerabilities in this application. Those vulnerabilities are even more severe because they can be exploited by **any anonymous attacker** without needing to bypass authorization controls.

---

**Analysis Completed:** 2025-10-28  
**Analyst:** Authorization Analysis Specialist  
**Status:** Complete - No authorization system exists to analyze