Security

This document describes the security posture, configuration, and guidelines for the server monitoring system.

Security Audit History

Every security control documented below was introduced or hardened through a tracked design/implementation pair under docs/plans/. These plans are the historical record — read them to understand why a control exists, not just how it behaves today.

Date Plan What it added
2026-03-17 2026-03-17-security-hardening-design.md / -impl.md Baseline hardening: secret-key enforcement, debug-mode rules, security middleware stack
2026-03-29 2026-03-29-security-ci-design.md CI security workflow: pip-audit, bandit, detect-secrets, trivy
2026-03-30 2026-03-30-security-check-script-design.md / -implementation.md bin/check_security.sh runtime posture check
2026-04-11 2026-04-11-path-traversal-prevention-design.md / -impl.md config/security/path_traversal.py (resolve_safe_path, resolve_safe_name, ALLOWED_FILESYSTEM_ROOTS)
2026-04-12 2026-04-12-ssrf-prevention-design.md / -impl.md config/security/url_validation.py + http.py (safe_urlopen, validate_safe_url, ruff TID251 ban)
2026-04-13 2026-04-13-auth-enabled-by-default-design.md / -impl.md API_KEY_AUTH_ENABLED=1 default; config.W002 warning
2026-04-13 2026-04-13-provider-kwargs-ssrf-design.md BLOCKED_CONFIG_KEYS filter on get_provider/get_active_provider
2026-04-15 2026-04-15-ssti-notify-template-design.md SSTI protection in apps/notify/templating.py (resolve_safe_name, ImmutableSandboxedEnvironment, bare-Jinja rejection)
2026-05-12 2026-05-12-iso-27003-security-audit-notes.md End-to-end ISO 27001:2022 / 27003 audit pass covering bin/, every apps/*, and config/. Per-module sinks, threat models, findings, sub-thresholds, and ISO Annex A control mapping. Recorded one MEDIUM finding (Finding 1, scan_paths config bypass) — fixed 2026-05-13.

Authoritative reference: when writing or reviewing security-sensitive code, 2026-05-12-iso-27003-security-audit-notes.md is the most recent end-to-end view of trust boundaries, sinks reviewed, and per-module rules. Each app’s agents.md carries the developer-facing distillation of that audit.

Secret Management

Django Secret Key

The DJANGO_SECRET_KEY environment variable is required. The application raises a RuntimeError at startup if it is not set (config/settings.py:35).

# Generate a production-grade key
python -c "from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key; print(get_random_secret_key())"

Environment Variables

Secrets are loaded from environment variables via python-dotenv (config/env.py). Key rules:

  • Never commit .env files — only .env.sample is tracked
  • Existing shell environment variables always take precedence (override=False)
  • .env.dev is loaded only when DJANGO_ENV=dev

Security-sensitive variables:

Variable Purpose Required
DJANGO_SECRET_KEY Django cryptographic signing Yes (enforced)
DJANGO_DB_PASSWORD Database credentials When using MySQL/PostgreSQL
CELERY_BROKER_URL Redis connection (may contain password) When using Celery

DB-Stored Secrets

API keys and credentials for notification channels and intelligence providers are stored in database JSON fields:

  • NotificationChannel.config — webhook URLs, SMTP passwords, API keys
  • IntelligenceProvider.config — AI provider API keys

In production deployments:

  • Use secret references rather than raw values where possible
  • Restrict database access to the Django application user
  • Consider encrypting sensitive fields at the application layer for high-security environments

Django Security Configuration

Middleware Stack

The following security middleware is enabled (config/settings.py:64-72):

Middleware Protection
SecurityMiddleware HTTPS redirects, HSTS, content type sniffing
CsrfViewMiddleware Cross-site request forgery protection
AuthenticationMiddleware Session-based authentication
XFrameOptionsMiddleware Clickjacking protection

Password Validation

All four Django password validators are enabled:

  • UserAttributeSimilarityValidator
  • MinimumLengthValidator
  • CommonPasswordValidator
  • NumericPasswordValidator

HTTPS Hardening (Production)

The following settings should be enabled in production environments via environment variables or a production settings module:

SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT = True
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE = True
SECURE_HSTS_SECONDS = 31536000  # 1 year
SECURE_HSTS_INCLUDE_SUBDOMAINS = True
SECURE_HSTS_PRELOAD = True
SECURE_CONTENT_TYPE_NOSNIFF = True

Debug Mode

DJANGO_DEBUG defaults to 1 (enabled) for local development. Always set DJANGO_DEBUG=0 in production.

Webhook Security

CSRF Exemption

The webhook endpoint (POST /alerts/webhook/) is CSRF-exempted because external alerting systems (Grafana, Alertmanager, PagerDuty, etc.) cannot include Django CSRF tokens. This is standard practice for webhook receivers.

Payload Validation

Each alert driver validates incoming payloads structurally via validate() and parse() methods. Drivers check for required keys and expected payload shapes.

API Key Authentication

API endpoints require authentication via API key for non-GET requests. Keys are managed via the Django admin.

Setup

  1. API key authentication is enabled by default. To disable for local development, set API_KEY_AUTH_ENABLED=0.
  2. Create a key via admin (/admin/config_app/apikey/) or shell:
from config.models import APIKey
key = APIKey.objects.create(name="my-client")
print(key.key)  # 40-char hex token

Usage

Include the key in every request via one of:

Authorization: Bearer <key>
X-API-Key: <key>

Endpoint Restrictions

Keys can optionally restrict access to specific path prefixes via the allowed_endpoints JSON field (e.g., ["/alerts/"]). Empty list = access all API endpoints.

Exempt Paths

The following paths do not require an API key:

  • /alerts/webhook/GET health check for the webhook endpoint
  • /intelligence/health/GET service health status
  • /admin/* — Django session auth (not API key auth)
  • /static/*

All other GET and POST requests on API paths (/alerts/, /orchestration/, /notify/, /intelligence/) require a valid key. In particular, data-returning endpoints such as /orchestration/pipelines/, /intelligence/providers/, and /intelligence/recommendations/ are not exempt.

The two health-check paths (/alerts/webhook/, /intelligence/health/) use an exact-equality match (path in HEALTH_CHECK_PATHS), so a suffix like /alerts/webhook/data does not bypass auth. The admin and static prefixes use a startswith match; both assume admin lives at the default /admin/ path. If ROOT_URLCONF ever relocates admin to a non-default path, EXEMPT_PATH_PREFIXES (config/middleware/constants.py) must be updated in lockstep.

API Key Disclosure Model

APIKey.prefix stores the first 8 hex characters of the raw key for safe admin display ({prefix}*** in the list view). Remaining entropy after prefix disclosure is 128 bits — well outside brute-force range — but treat the admin list view as a trust-bearing surface (screenshots, logs).

The raw key itself is never persisted: only its SHA-256 digest is stored (APIKey.key, 64 hex chars) and the digest field is editable=False. Operators see the raw key exactly once at creation time.

Webhook Signature Verification

Drivers support opt-in HMAC signature verification. When a secret is configured for a driver, incoming webhooks must include a valid signature.

Configuration

Set an environment variable per driver:

Variable Driver
WEBHOOK_SECRET_GRAFANA Grafana
WEBHOOK_SECRET_PAGERDUTY PagerDuty
WEBHOOK_SECRET_NEWRELIC New Relic
WEBHOOK_SECRET_GENERIC Generic webhook

Drivers without native signature support (Alertmanager, Datadog, OpsGenie, Zabbix) do not perform verification.

How It Works

  • The driver declares its signature header (e.g., X-Grafana-Signature)
  • On incoming POST, if the env var is set, the middleware computes HMAC-SHA256(secret, request.body) and compares with the header value using hmac.compare_digest (constant-time)
  • Missing or invalid signature → 403 Forbidden
  • No env var configured → verification skipped (opt-in)

Auto-Detection Fallback

When driver= is omitted from the request, the alerts ingestor probes drivers in registry order and uses the first that successfully validate()s the payload. If the matched driver has no WEBHOOK_SECRET_<NAME> env var configured, HMAC verification is silently skipped — this is the documented opt-in model.

Operator rule: for any inbound driver you trust in production, set the corresponding WEBHOOK_SECRET_* env var. Auto-detect plus an unset secret means the endpoint is reachable by any caller who can hit it; combine with APIKey.allowed_endpoints and rate-limiting to bound the surface.

Rate Limiting

Application-level rate limiting using Django cache with fixed-window counters (one bucket per UTC minute per identity/prefix).

Configuration

Enable: RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED=1

Default limits (configurable via RATE_LIMITS in settings):

Path prefix Limit
/alerts/ 120 req/min
/orchestration/ 30 req/min
/notify/ 30 req/min
/intelligence/ 20 req/min

Identity

Limits are tracked per API key name (if authenticated) or per client IP (REMOTE_ADDR).

Reverse-proxy caveat: RateLimitMiddleware._get_identity reads request.META["REMOTE_ADDR"] directly. Behind a proxy (nginx, Cloudflare, ALB), REMOTE_ADDR is the proxy’s IP — every external client shares one bucket and the limiter becomes a global throttle. When deploying behind a proxy, either (a) configure a proxy-aware REMOTE_ADDR setter middleware before RateLimitMiddleware, or (b) rely solely on per-API-key bucketing (named keys side-step the IP collapse). Most operational deployments fall into (b).

Scope: Mutating Requests Only

GET requests are exempt from rate limiting (RateLimitMiddleware.__call__ line 41). Read endpoints like /orchestration/pipelines/, /notify/channels/, /intelligence/providers/ are not rate-paced by this middleware. Per-API-key allowed_endpoints already gate which read endpoints a key can hit; if you need read-side pacing (e.g., to bound enumeration cost), terminate that at the upstream proxy.

Cache Backend

Rate limiting requires a shared cache backend (Redis or Memcached) in multi-process deployments. A Django system check (config.W001) warns if rate limiting is enabled with LocMemCache.

Current Limitations

The following are known areas for improvement:

  • DB-stored secrets not encrypted — API keys and provider credentials in JSON fields are not encrypted at rest. Consider field-level encryption for high-security environments.

Path Traversal Protection

All user-supplied file and directory paths (HTTP query parameters, CLI arguments) must be resolved to absolute form before use. This prevents path traversal attacks where an attacker submits paths like ../../etc/shadow to access sensitive system files.

Centralized Utility

Path traversal prevention is centralized in config/security/path_traversal.py. The package is organized by attack type so future security checks (injection, secret redaction, etc.) slot in naturally.

config/security/
  __init__.py              # Re-exports all public APIs
  path_traversal.py        # Path traversal prevention

API

resolve_safe_path(user_input, allowed_roots) — Resolves a path to absolute form via pathlib.Path.resolve() and validates it against an allowlist. Raises PathNotAllowedError if outside all allowed roots.

from config.security import resolve_safe_path, PathNotAllowedError

# In a Django view:
try:
    path = resolve_safe_path(request.GET.get("path", "/var/log"))
except PathNotAllowedError as e:
    return error_response(str(e), status=400)

# In a management command:
try:
    path = resolve_safe_path(options["path"])
except PathNotAllowedError as e:
    raise CommandError(str(e))

resolve_safe_name(name) — Validates a filename or template name. Rejects names containing slashes, backslashes, leading dots, or .. sequences. Used for template loading where names come from DB config.

from config.security import resolve_safe_name, PathNotAllowedError

try:
    name = resolve_safe_name(template_name)
except PathNotAllowedError:
    return None  # treat as "template not found"

Default allowlist (ALLOWED_FILESYSTEM_ROOTS): /var, /tmp, /home, /opt, /srv, /usr (resolved at import time to handle OS symlinks like macOS /tmp -> /private/tmp). The root path / is intentionally excluded — if included, any path would pass validation.

Protected Entry Points

Entry Point Protection Error Handling
GET /intelligence/disk/?path=... resolve_safe_path() 400 JSON error
intelligence/providers/local.py subprocess resolve_safe_path() Propagates to caller
notify/templating.py template loading resolve_safe_name() Returns None
get_recommendations --path resolve_safe_path() CommandError
run_pipeline --file, --config resolve_safe_path() CommandError
check_health --disk-paths resolve_safe_path() CommandError
run_check --paths resolve_safe_path() CommandError

Rules for New Code

  • Always use the utility: Import from config.security, do not write inline validation
  • Resolve before use: Never pass user-supplied paths directly to file operations or subprocess calls
  • No / in allowlists: Including / makes the allowlist meaningless
  • Handle defaults explicitly: If a command defaults to /, skip validation for that specific default value
  • Filter path-bearing config kwargs: any provider/driver kwarg accepting a host, URL, filesystem path, command, or template name must be added to the relevant allowlist-by-omission filter (apps.intelligence.providers.BLOCKED_CONFIG_KEYS, apps.orchestration.executors._PAYLOAD_TEMPLATE_KEYS) or validated at the constructor via resolve_safe_path / validate_safe_url. See Finding 1 in the ISO 27003 audit for the worked example (scan_paths bypass).

Pipeline Stat-Only Sinks

apps/intelligence/providers/local.py walks the configured scan_paths via Path.rglob("*") and reports filename / size / mtime metadata only — no file contents are returned. The path validation contract still requires every entry in scan_paths to originate from admin-controlled DB config (the API caller cannot supply scan_paths because it is in BLOCKED_CONFIG_KEYS). Symlink following is the default behaviour of rglob, which compounds the impact of any path-validation gap; this is intentional for cleanup-recommendation use cases but means any future code reading file contents from these walks must add per-entry resolve_safe_path validation.

Resolve-vs-Open TOCTOU

Path.resolve() validates the path at validation time. If the path is replaced with a symlink (pointing out-of-tree) after resolve_safe_path returns but before the caller open()s it, the open follows the new symlink. Defending against this requires os.open(path, O_NOFOLLOW) or os.O_PATH-based fd handling — neither is currently used. In single-user / single-tenant deployments the attacker would already need filesystem-write access to exploit; for shared-host or multi-tenant deployments this becomes a real concern and should be hardened before deploying.

Allowlist Hygiene for Operators

ALLOWED_FILESYSTEM_ROOTS = (/var, /tmp, /home, /opt, /srv, /usr) is the default. The /home entry covers all user home directories; for a multi-user host you should narrow this to /home/<service-user> either by overriding the constant or by setting tighter custom roots in the calling code. /tmp is world-writable; rely on per-process tempdirs (Python tempfile) when storing sensitive data.

SSRF Prevention

All outbound HTTP requests must be validated against private/reserved IP ranges before execution. This prevents Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) attacks where an attacker-controlled URL redirects the server to internal services, cloud metadata endpoints, or loopback addresses.

Centralized Utility

SSRF prevention is centralized in config/security/, following the same pattern as path traversal prevention:

config/security/
  __init__.py              # Re-exports all public APIs
  path_traversal.py        # Path traversal prevention
  url_validation.py        # SSRF URL/IP validation
  http.py                  # safe_urlopen wrapper

API

safe_urlopen(request, *, allowed_hosts, timeout) — Drop-in replacement for urllib.request.urlopen. Validates the request URL against private/reserved IP ranges before making the HTTP request. Use this in all application code instead of raw urlopen.

from config.security.http import safe_urlopen

# In a notify driver — replaces urllib.request.urlopen:
with safe_urlopen(request, allowed_hosts=settings.SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS, timeout=30) as response:
    response_body = response.read().decode("utf-8")

validate_safe_url(url, allowed_hosts) — Low-level validator for URLs passed to third-party SDK constructors (ollama, openai) that have their own HTTP stacks. Parses the URL, resolves the hostname via DNS, and rejects any URL whose resolved IP falls in private, loopback, link-local, reserved, or multicast ranges.

from config.security import validate_safe_url, URLNotAllowedError

# In a provider __init__:
validate_safe_url(base_url, allowed_hosts=settings.SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS)

Configuration

SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS — comma-separated list of hostnames/IPs that bypass the private-IP check. Default: empty (no exceptions).

# Allow Ollama on local network and internal hub
SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS=ollama.internal,10.0.1.50

Enforcement

A ruff lint rule (TID251) bans direct urllib.request.urlopen imports. Violations are caught in the editor (red squiggly), at pre-commit hook time, and in CI — before code reaches production. The config/security/http.py wrapper is the only file exempt via # noqa: TID251.

Protected Call Sites

Call Site Method Error Handling
notify/drivers/generic.py safe_urlopen Returns {"success": False}
notify/drivers/slack.py safe_urlopen Returns {"success": False}
notify/drivers/pagerduty.py safe_urlopen Returns {"success": False}
intelligence/providers/ollama.py validate_safe_url Raises URLNotAllowedError
intelligence/providers/grok.py validate_safe_url Raises URLNotAllowedError
intelligence/providers/copilot.py validate_safe_url Raises URLNotAllowedError
alerts/commands/push_to_hub.py safe_urlopen Raises CommandError

Rules for New Code

  • Use safe_urlopen: For any code using urllib.request, import safe_urlopen from config.security.http — never use raw urlopen
  • Use validate_safe_url: For URLs passed to third-party SDK constructors
  • Pass the allowlist: Always pass allowed_hosts=settings.SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS so operators can configure exceptions
  • Fail closed: If DNS resolution fails, the URL is rejected
  • Lint enforcement: Ruff TID251 flags any raw urlopen import — fix before committing

Residual Risk: DNS Rebinding

validate_safe_url resolves DNS once at validation time; the actual urlopen later re-resolves DNS at connect time. An attacker who controls a DNS record (TTL=0) could serve a public IP on the validation lookup and a private/internal IP on the connect lookup, bypassing the private-IP check. _SSRFRedirectHandler closes this for redirects but not for the initial connection.

In the current codebase, no API path lets the caller choose the URL — every reachable outbound HTTP destination originates from admin-controlled DB config (NotificationChannel.config, IntelligenceProvider.config) or a hardcoded constant (PagerDuty). The practical attack therefore requires either:

  1. An attacker who has compromised DNS for a hostname the admin already configured (e.g., hooks.slack.com), or
  2. SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS to include a hostname whose DNS the attacker controls.

Both are extreme scenarios for single-tenant deployments. If the deployment ever permits caller-supplied URLs to flow into safe_urlopen / validate_safe_url, harden by either pinning the resolved IP through to connect time, or routing outbound traffic through an egress proxy that re-validates at the network layer. See the ISO 27003 audit, config Sub-threshold #3.

Generic Driver Response Echo

apps/notify/drivers/generic.py returns the remote response body back to the API caller. Documented behaviour, useful for debugging webhook integrations — but it means the SSRF allowlist (SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS) is the gating control, not a defense-in-depth layer. If allowlist policy ever loosens, this driver becomes a half-blind SSRF read primitive. Keep SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS narrow.

Pipeline Orchestration

The orchestration layer (apps.orchestration) is the only stage controller and is the entry point for /orchestration/pipeline/* and /orchestration/definitions/*/execute/. Treat every field of the request body as untrusted after API-key auth: payload, provider, provider_config, notify_driver, notify_config, notify_channel, incident_id, trace_id, checker_configs, labels, etc.

run_id and trace_id

run_id is always server-generated (uuid.uuid4()) in PipelineOrchestrator.start_pipeline and DefinitionBasedOrchestrator.execute. A caller-supplied run_id in the body is ignored. Do not introduce code paths that accept caller-chosen run IDs — attackers could collide existing records or forge idempotency_keys.

trace_id is caller-controllable. It is a log-correlation hint, not an authorization token. Never use it to gate access, identity, or routing decisions.

incident_id Trust Assumption (single-tenant)

PipelineDefinitionExecuteView accepts incident_id from the request body and writes it directly onto PipelineRun.incident_id. Downstream stages then fetch the linked Incident and feed it to the AI provider / notification template. In the current single-tenant deployment model this is not a vulnerability — every API key has access to every incident. In any future multi-tenant deployment this becomes a cross-tenant information-disclosure primitive and must be re-gated with per-actor authorization.

Pipeline Resume Authorization

PipelineResumeView only requires the pipeline’s status to be FAILED or RETRYING. Any API key holder whose allowed_endpoints covers /orchestration/pipeline/ can resume any failed pipeline. Acceptable for single-tenant; revisit before any per-tenant separation.

_should_skip Discipline (definition-based pipelines)

DefinitionBasedOrchestrator._should_skip() supports a skip_if_condition string with a fixed .has_errors pattern matcher. This is a fixed-pattern matcher by design. Do not extend it into a real expression language using eval, exec, compile, ast.literal_eval over attacker data, or Jinja2 — any of those opens code-execution / SSTI on attacker-controlled PipelineDefinition.config. If a richer condition language is genuinely needed, route it through an explicit safe-expression parser with no name resolution and no attribute access.

Operator Tooling (bin/)

The bin/ toolchain (install.sh, cli.sh, update.sh, check_security.sh, etc.) is admin/operator-only. It is invoked from a shell session by a user with login access and never consumes HTTP, webhook, or task-queue input.

Invariants for new code in bin/:

  • Never read or trust input that originated from the API, webhook, or Celery surface. If you need data from the Django application, run a manage.py command and parse its output.
  • confirm_and_run and similar interactive helpers consume read/stdin from the operator session only.
  • Subprocess spawning uses list-form argv; never interpolate user input into a shell string.
  • No sudo, setuid, or privilege-escalation paths are introduced.

Supply Chain

The auto-update flow in bin/lib/update.sh performs git fetch origin main and applies updates from origin/main. This intentionally trusts origin/main — the operator’s chosen remote is the trust root for code updates. Implications:

  • Anyone who can push to origin/main can ship code that executes with the privileges of the application user.
  • Branch protection on main (required reviews, status checks) is the actual control.
  • Operators running self-hosted clones must understand which remote they have configured.

When introducing new auto-update behaviour (signed commits, signed releases, version pinning), document the trust model alongside the change.

Production Hardening Checklist

The following are operator-set in productionconfig/settings.py does not impose them so that local development stays low-friction. Set these (env vars or a production settings module) before deploying with DEBUG=0:

DJANGO_DEBUG = 0
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ["your.host.example", "..."]  # never use ['*']

SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT = True
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE = True
SECURE_HSTS_SECONDS = 31536000
SECURE_HSTS_INCLUDE_SUBDOMAINS = True
SECURE_HSTS_PRELOAD = True
SECURE_CONTENT_TYPE_NOSNIFF = True
SECURE_REFERRER_POLICY = "same-origin"
# If behind a proxy that terminates TLS:
SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ("HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO", "https")

Additional operator tasks:

  • Rate limiting: RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED=1 and use Redis/Memcached cache backend (locmem warns with config.W001).
  • API key auth: API_KEY_AUTH_ENABLED=1 (default since 2026-04-13); config.W002 warns if disabled in non-DEBUG.
  • SSRF allowlist: keep SSRF_ALLOWED_HOSTS narrow; every entry expands the residual DNS-rebinding surface.
  • Log rotation: the default LOGGING config uses a plain FileHandler with no rotation. Either switch to RotatingFileHandler / TimedRotatingFileHandler in your production settings, or wire logrotate against LOGS_DIR/django.log.
  • Filesystem allowlist: narrow ALLOWED_FILESYSTEM_ROOTS to the directories the service genuinely needs to read; the default /home covers every user.
  • Reverse-proxy header trust: if you depend on per-IP rate-limit identity, install a proxy-aware REMOTE_ADDR setter ahead of RateLimitMiddleware.
  • Branch protection on main: the auto-update flow trusts origin/main; protect that branch.
  • Run manage.py preflight --json in CI for the deployed environment; it surfaces every system check including config.W001, config.W002.

Data Handling

Redacted References

The pipeline stores references to data rather than raw payloads to avoid leaking secrets:

  • normalized_payload_ref — Reference to normalized inbound payload (no raw secrets)
  • checker_output_ref — Reference to checker output
  • intelligence_output_ref — Reference to AI analysis (prompt/response refs, redacted)
  • notify_output_ref — Reference to notification delivery results

Logging

  • Never log raw webhook payloads that may contain credentials
  • Never log API keys, tokens, or webhook URLs
  • Use structured logging with trace_id/run_id for correlation without exposing sensitive data

Celery Security

  • JSON-only serializationCELERY_ACCEPT_CONTENT, CELERY_TASK_SERIALIZER, and CELERY_RESULT_SERIALIZER are all set to json, preventing pickle deserialization attacks
  • Broker URL may contain credentials — treat CELERY_BROKER_URL as a secret

CI Security Checks

Automated Checks (.github/workflows/security.yml)

The security workflow runs automatically on:

  • Every push to main
  • Pull requests that change Python files, pyproject.toml, uv.lock, Docker config, or the workflow itself

Code Security job:

Check Tool What it does
Dependency audit pip-audit Scans installed packages for known CVEs
Security lint bandit Static analysis for common Python security issues
Secret detection detect-secrets Scans for accidentally committed credentials

Docker Security job:

Check Tool What it does
Image vulnerability scan trivy Scans the Docker image for OS and library CVEs (blocks on CRITICAL)
HIGH vulnerability report trivy Reports HIGH-severity vulnerabilities (non-blocking)

Addressing Security Alerts

When a vulnerability is reported (by pip-audit, GitHub Dependabot, or manual audit):

  1. Identify the package and fix version — check the CVE details for the patched version
  2. Bump the dependency:
    • Direct dependency: update version in pyproject.toml, then uv lock
    • Transitive dependency: uv lock --upgrade-package <package>
  3. Verify the fix: uv sync --extra dev && uv run pip-audit --strict --desc
  4. Create a PR — the security workflow triggers automatically for dependency changes
  5. Merge promptly — security fixes should not wait in review queues

For Docker image vulnerabilities (trivy), rebuild with an updated base image or pin a patched version of the affected OS package.

CI Pipeline (.github/workflows/ci.yml)

  • Lint: Black formatting + Ruff linting (catches common issues)
  • Type check: mypy with django-stubs (catches type-related bugs)
  • Tests: pytest across Python 3.10, 3.11, 3.12
  • Django checks: manage.py check + migration consistency

Admin Interface

The Django admin (/admin/) is the primary operations surface:

  • Protected by Django’s built-in staff/superuser authentication
  • Custom MonitoringAdminSite inherits all default auth protections
  • Admin actions (acknowledge, resolve, retry) require authenticated staff access

Reporting Vulnerabilities

If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it responsibly by opening a private issue or contacting the maintainer directly. Do not disclose vulnerabilities in public issues.

Appendix: ISO 27001:2022 Annex A Statement of Applicability

Mapping derived from the 2026-05-12 ISO 27003 audit. Each control lists where the mitigation lives in the codebase.

Control Title Codebase mitigation
A.5.15 Access control config/middleware/api_key_auth.py (per-endpoint API keys, allowed_endpoints allowlists); Django staff/superuser auth on /admin/
A.5.17 Authentication information APIKey model: secrets.token_hex(20) raw, SHA-256 digest at rest, never re-displayed; DJANGO_SECRET_KEY env-only with startup check; WEBHOOK_SECRET_<DRIVER> env vars
A.5.23 Information security for use of cloud services validate_safe_url on intelligence-provider base URLs; BLOCKED_CONFIG_KEYS filter on API-callable provider config
A.8.2 Privileged access rights bin/ toolchain confirmed not to grant sudo or install setuid; Django admin actions gated by is_staff
A.8.3 Information access restriction APIKey.allowed_endpoints path-prefix gating; admin actions outside webhook surface
A.8.5 Secure authentication Bearer / X-API-Key header model; constant-time digest comparison via DB lookup on hashed digest
A.8.9 Configuration management .env / .env.sample split; bin/check_security.sh runtime posture check; Django system checks config.W001/config.W002
A.8.11 Data masking Pipeline stores references (normalized_payload_ref, checker_output_ref, intelligence_output_ref, notify_output_ref) — not raw payloads
A.8.12 Data leakage prevention Logging rules — no raw webhook payloads, tokens, or URLs in logs; _redact_config in apps/intelligence/providers/base.py
A.8.20 Networks security validate_safe_url private/reserved-IP allowlist on outbound HTTP destinations
A.8.21 Security of network services safe_urlopen with redirect re-validation; ruff TID251 ban as compile-time gate
A.8.24 Use of cryptography hmac.compare_digest on webhook signature verification; SHA-256 on API key digests; Celery JSON-only serializer; no TLS bypass anywhere
A.8.25 Secure development lifecycle Ruff banned-API rule encodes the SSRF contract at lint time; SSTI regression tests under apps/notify/_tests/; ISO 27003 audit pass with per-module sinks review
A.8.26 Application security requirements Central config.security package; admin uses format_html placeholders consistently; allowlist-by-omission patterns (BLOCKED_CONFIG_KEYS, _PAYLOAD_TEMPLATE_KEYS, EXEMPT_PATH_PREFIXES)
A.8.28 Secure coding secrets.token_hex for key generation; hashlib.sha256 for storage; no mark_safe on user data; HTML output via format_html placeholders; sandboxed Jinja for templates

This table is the input for any external ISO certification or internal security review. When adding a new control surface (e.g., field-level DB encryption), add the row here and link to the implementing plan in docs/plans/.


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