Hello guys, I’m have little to no experience when i have to deal with networking or cybersecurity.
I recently created a backend RESTful API on my Ubuntu VM on my personal desktop and dockerized the app, connecting it to a bridge network named ‘tunnel.’ I also have the Cloudflare Docker hosted in the same ‘tunnel’ network, which allows my local RESTful API Docker to be accessible via my domain and exposed to the internet.
Can anyone help me understand if this setup poses any security risks to my home network?
If so, what should I do to help reduce the risk? I have read that firewall helps, but does a restful api container developed with golang requires it?
There’s nothing inherently insecure about exposing a service to the internet. But it does create an attack surface.
A firewall or proxy (Cloudflare, Nginx etc) allows you to restrict access via ip address or authentication, but if there’s a bug in your service it can still be exploited.
The good news about a service you write is that there are no ready built tools to exploit it. The bad news is that there are almost certainly more bugs.
So it really comes down to what your ap has access to (is it jailed or restricted in someway), is it read only or does it allow modifying file in the system? How confident are you with your code? If someone starts bashing in it, will you be alerted? Is it did get a coloured how serious would that be? There is no “right” answer, is a risk assessment you have to make based on your situation.
My APIs require just a simple api key to be placed in a json header to make a request.
It is just some personal android apps connected to these APIs to interact with certain databases. While there’s no sensitive data involved, I am more concerned about specifically, if there’s a possibility that an attacker could use this to gain access to my personal computer or other devices connected to my home network.
Should I create a sub network and get a raspberry pi to host these apps?
Realistically, if its an API you created yourself, then no hacker is going to waste their time targetting your bespoke api. Its just too much effort for a single target.
However, if you happen to be on a 3 letter agency’s shit list, then they may spend some time investigating your API for weaknesses. But they will get in either way, so it really doesnt matter.
You mentioned that the API controls a VM, does it let you run scripts or commands on a target? Is it authenticated?
I see no one has mentioned Kong, it’s an api gateway that can reverse proxy your api requests but it’s so much more than that. It can do all sorts of pipelining to do stuff like add JWT, OAuth or Key authentication, rate limiting plus more. You can run it in a docker container too.
Not sure why no one has pointed you to the actual product Cloudflare have for API security - Cloudflare API Gateway (and API Shield).
You can kinda-sorta-not-really fudge control with a combination of Access Policy (or exclusion rules for that) and Firewall Rules, or even tack on Access control via JWT etc if you want though.
Withuot any of those just consider it having been made ‘public’ to the internet at large and secure accordingly.