I've been with my team for about three months now, and I've noticed something that raises some red flags for me, but maybe I'm the only one concerned. We operate a multi-tenant SaaS platform and utilize message queues to facilitate events between services. However, I've realized that our message queue lacks any authentication or authorization, which means that one tenant could potentially subscribe to another tenant's topics if they were aware of the topic names.
When I raised this issue with my senior, they reassured me that it was fine since everything operates over a private network. But honestly, that response seems a bit flimsy. Isn't that security through obscurity? Am I just being overly paranoid, or should I be more assertive about this concern? I don't want to come across as the junior member who nitpicks, but this feels like a critical issue that needs addressing.
5 Answers
Your worries are valid. Private networks can indeed be breached, so relying solely on that can be risky. You should always have authentication and authorization measures in place as a best practice. How sensitive is the data being handled in these message queues?
Honestly, you should ideally have authentication in place. Security should be layered, not just relying on the idea that it's on a private network. Since you raised your concern and it was brushed off, it’s probably a good idea to note this for future reference and not get too worked up about it right now.
It's important to understand the risks. If tenant A can see or interact with tenant B's queues without any restrictions, it could lead to significant issues. Ideally, there should be some level of access control globally to prevent unauthorized access, regardless of tenants.
The real issue might depend on how the configuration is set up. If tenants are separated effectively, there may be less concern, but if there's any overlap, it's crucial to ensure there's adequate security. You might want to explore how multi-tenant systems usually handle these concerns.
You definitely have a valid point here. This practice is concerning, and in certain industries, it could even violate regulations. If you're using a managed service for your queues, authN and authZ are generally integrated. Rolling your own solution might take more effort, but it's well worth it for security. If the internal network is completely open, though, you might have bigger issues to deal with as well.
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