slack5-1770544098/.sdlc/features/user-preferences/audit.md

Security Audit: User Preferences API

Summary

Overall Assessment: PASS

The User Preferences API feature demonstrates a well-structured, security-conscious implementation. No critical or high severity findings were identified. The code follows established hexagonal architecture patterns, uses parameterized SQL queries, validates all input at the domain layer, and enforces authentication and authorization boundaries correctly. A few low-severity observations are noted below for consideration.

Static Analysis Results

go vet

Status: Clean - no warnings or errors detected.

$ go vet ./...
(no output - all clear)

golangci-lint

Status: Not installed in environment. Manual review performed in lieu of automated linting.

Tests

Status: All 13 tests pass across 2 test suites (handler and service layers).

OWASP Assessment

Category	Status	Notes
A01 - Injection	PASS	All SQL queries use parameterized placeholders ($1, $2). JSONB data is marshaled via Go's encoding/json and passed as parameters, not interpolated into SQL strings. No command execution or template rendering present.
A02 - Broken Authentication	PASS	JWT authentication enforced via auth.Middleware() on all preference endpoints. JWT secret sourced from environment variable (JWT_SECRET), not hardcoded. Token validation uses the shared auth package with proper expiry checking.
A03 - Sensitive Data Exposure	PASS	No secrets in code. JWT secret read from environment. Preferences contain only non-sensitive data (theme, language, notification toggle). Error messages do not leak internal details. No PII is logged beyond user_id.
A04 - XXE / Insecure Deserialization	PASS	No XML parsing. JSON unmarshaling uses Go's standard encoding/json with typed struct binding (app.BindAndValidate). Domain validation rejects unknown keys and invalid value types before persistence.
A05 - Broken Access Control	PASS	Every endpoint checks resource ownership via checkOwnership() which compares the authenticated user ID (from JWT context) against the {user_id} path parameter. Mismatch returns 403 Forbidden. Both GET and PUT perform this check before any data access.
A06 - Security Misconfiguration	PASS (with note)	Auth is conditionally enabled via AUTH_ENABLED env var (see Medium finding M1). No debug modes or permissive CORS in this service. Health endpoint is correctly excluded from auth.
A07 - XSS	N/A	Backend API only - no HTML rendering. JSON responses are safely serialized by Go's standard library.
A08 - Insecure Components	PASS	Dependencies are standard Go ecosystem packages (chi, google/uuid). No known vulnerable dependencies identified.
A09 - Insufficient Logging	PASS	Request logging via middleware (RequestLogger). Successful preference updates are logged with user_id. Auth failures logged by auth middleware. Recovery middleware catches panics.
A10 - SSRF	PASS	No user-controlled URLs or outbound HTTP requests. The service only accepts inbound requests and queries PostgreSQL.

Critical Findings

None.

High Findings

None.

Medium Findings

M1: Auth Toggle Could Bypass Authentication in Production

Severity: Medium Location: internal/api/routes.go:32, internal/config/config.go:31

The AuthEnabled config flag (controlled by AUTH_ENABLED env var) allows completely disabling authentication. If this is accidentally set to false or omitted in production, all preference endpoints become unauthenticated. Additionally, auth.MustGetUser() in the handler's checkOwnership() would panic when no user is in context, relying on the recovery middleware to return a 500 error.

Mitigation: This is a common pattern in this codebase for local development convenience. Ensure production deployment configurations explicitly set AUTH_ENABLED=true and that infrastructure safeguards (e.g., deployment manifests, CI checks) validate this setting.

Low Findings

L1: No Request Body Size Limit

Severity: Low Location: internal/api/handlers/preferences.go:76

The PUT endpoint does not explicitly limit request body size. While the domain layer restricts preferences to 3 known keys, a malicious client could send a very large JSON body before validation occurs. The app.BindAndValidate() function may rely on framework defaults for body size limits.

Recommendation: Verify that the app package or middleware enforces a reasonable body size limit (e.g., 1MB). If not, consider adding http.MaxBytesReader at the handler or middleware level.

L2: No Rate Limiting on Preference Updates

Severity: Low Location: internal/api/routes.go:42-43

There is no rate limiting on the PUT endpoint. A compromised or malicious client with a valid JWT could rapidly update preferences, generating unnecessary database writes.

Recommendation: This is acknowledged as out of scope in the spec. Rate limiting should be handled at the infrastructure level (API gateway/ingress) rather than per-service.

L3: User ID Logged on Update Without Sanitization Context

Severity: Low Location: internal/service/preferences.go:55

The user_id is logged on successful update. While UUIDs are safe to log, the logging statement doesn't include the request ID for correlation. The middleware-level request logger handles this via context, but the service-level log entry may lack request tracing context depending on the logging configuration.

Recommendation: Ensure structured logging propagates request IDs through context automatically (verify logging.Logger behavior).

Recommendations

1. Ensure AUTH_ENABLED=true in production - Add a CI/deployment check that validates auth is enabled in production configurations.
2. Verify request body size limits - Confirm the app.BindAndValidate() or middleware stack enforces a maximum request body size.
3. Add infrastructure-level rate limiting - Configure rate limits at the API gateway for the preferences endpoints.
4. Consider domain-level unit tests - The domain validation logic (ValidatePreferences, ValidatePreferenceKey, ValidatePreferenceValue) has no dedicated unit tests. While covered transitively through service tests, direct domain tests would improve coverage and serve as documentation.

Files Reviewed

File	Purpose
cmd/server/main.go	Service entry point and wiring
internal/config/config.go	Configuration loading
internal/domain/preferences.go	Domain entity and validation
internal/domain/errors.go	Domain error definitions
internal/port/preferences.go	Repository interface
internal/adapter/postgres/preferences.go	PostgreSQL repository
internal/service/preferences.go	Business logic
internal/service/preferences_test.go	Service unit tests
internal/api/handlers/preferences.go	HTTP handlers
internal/api/handlers/preferences_test.go	Handler integration tests
internal/api/handlers/health.go	Health check handler
internal/api/routes.go	Route registration
internal/api/spec.go	OpenAPI specification
migrations/001_create_user_preferences.sql	Database migration
migrations/migrations.go	Embedded migration FS