Data file susceptible to corruption

[Thunderdragon221]

Data file is susceptible to corruption (when the name of an item listed is changed)
Or when price of an item is corrupted to be negative.
The program does not detect corruption.
Bug severity: High as it is a security risk.

[nus-se-script]

Team's Response

This is achieved through malicious tampering of our data files.

While there are constraints of requiring data to be stored locally and that they should be in a human editable text file, there are no constraints in the tp that require us to check for the integrity of the file that has been intentionally broken by a professional user (such as you).

The target audience of our application is made up of mostly non-tech savvy people, and the only people who would tamper with such data files are developers. With that in mind, we did not prioritize integrity checking as we'd rather focus on implementing the other parts of our application.

With that being said, it is a good function, but not necessary to have. Perhaps in future iterations of the product, this feature could be implemented.

The 'Original' Bug

[The team marked this bug as a duplicate of the following bug]

Application crash when user tampers with the menu.json file

Describe the bug

The app will crash if the menu.json file is modified (refer to screenshots). In addition the error renders user unable to use other command the application as the .json file keeps throwing error.

Screenshots

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_{[original: nus-cs2113-AY2223S2/pe-interim#1619] [original labels: type.FunctionalityBug severity.High]}

Their Response to the 'Original' Bug

[This is the team's response to the above 'original' bug]

While there are constraints of requiring data to be stored locally and that they should be in a human editable text file, there are no constraints in the tp that require us to check for the integrity of the file that has been intentionally broken by a professional user (such as you).

The target audience of our application is made up of mostly non-tech savvy people, and the only people who would tamper with such data files are developers. With that in mind, we did not prioritize integrity checking as we'd rather focus on implementing the other parts of our application.

With that being said, it is a good function, but not necessary to have. Perhaps in future iterations of the product, this feature could be implemented.

Items for the Tester to Verify

❓ Issue duplicate status

Team chose to mark this issue as a duplicate of another issue (as explained in the Team's response above)

• I disagree

Reason for disagreement: [replace this with your explanation]

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❓ Issue response

Team chose [response.NotInScope]

• I disagree

Reason for disagreement: The fact that crashing of the program can be achieved (see "original" bug above) by tampering of the data file already means this is a High severity bug, since safeguarding of the data file was not carried out appropriately by the devs. I encourage the devs to refer to the CS2113 definitions stated below of what a High severity bug involves. Even if the program does not crash due to tampering of the data file (if the price of the item is modified to an unrealistic value instead of an unknown parameter being added to an item), the effects of corruption propagate throughout the application, as can be seen in the screenshots below, which show that the program does not have any exception handling when reading from the file and thus treats a negative pricing of an item to be legitimate, compiles an order which includes an item with negative pricing, and proceeds to request payment from the user. When the user pays $1 for the corresponding order, the change refunded to the user is $9991. Can there ever be a situation where a customer is offered massive amounts of change for the amount he paid for an order? NO! In this case, it is evident that any hawker using the application unknowingly with a corrupted data file would already have lost their entire life savings in a day without even knowing why. This is a bug of unprecedented scale and obviously deserves a High severity; anything less would not be justified.

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