Security Best Practices

Security Best Practices

Use this skill for implementation or review when code touches trust boundaries, credentials, PII, authorization, uploads, payments, or external integrations.

Priorities

1. Least privilege
2. Validation at boundaries
3. Safe defaults
4. Secret hygiene
5. Auditability

Core Rules

1. Treat every external input as untrusted

Validate and normalize:

• request params
• headers
• bodies
• cookies
• files
• third-party payloads
• environment variables

Do not rely on frontend validation for security.

2. Keep authentication and authorization separate

• Authentication proves identity.
• Authorization proves permission for the конкретный action/resource.
• Always check authorization close to the business action, not only at the router edge.

3. Minimize secret exposure

• Never hardcode secrets.
• Keep secrets out of logs, client responses, screenshots, and test fixtures.
• Rotate and scope tokens/keys where the platform supports it.
• Prefer short-lived credentials when feasible.

4. Protect sensitive data deliberately

• Collect the minimum data needed.
• Encrypt or hash sensitive data where appropriate.
• Do not store passwords reversibly.
• Be explicit about retention, masking, and audit needs.

5. Prevent injection and unsafe execution

• Use parameterized queries.
• Avoid shell execution with interpolated user input.
• Validate file paths, URLs, and dynamic selectors before use.
• Normalize or reject untrusted structured objects before handing them to query builders or ORMs.

6. Fail safely

• Deny by default.
• Return safe, minimal error responses.
• Do not leak stack traces, internal IDs, provider payloads, or permission model details to untrusted clients.

7. Make side effects resistant to abuse

• Rate-limit abuse-prone endpoints.
• Add CSRF protection where relevant.
• Use idempotency or replay protection for sensitive write operations.
• Put sensible limits on uploads, payload size, and expensive operations.

Review Heuristics

Look for:

• missing authz checks
• trust in client-supplied roles/flags
• secrets in source or logs
• unsafe file or command handling
• missing validation at service boundaries
• over-broad access to data or admin features
• internal error leakage
• retries or webhooks that can duplicate sensitive actions

Common High-Risk Areas

• auth flows
• password reset / email verification
• payments and billing
• uploads and file parsing
• webhooks
• admin tools
• search/query builders
• any endpoint returning user-specific data

Anti-Patterns

Avoid:

• "admin if flag says so" authorization
• passing raw provider payloads through the system unchecked
• logging tokens, passwords, card-like data, or full personal records
• broad catch blocks that convert security failures into generic success/fallback behavior
• storing long-lived secrets in client-accessible places

Quick Checklist

• Inputs are validated at the boundary
• Auth and authz are both enforced
• Secrets are not exposed in code, logs, or responses
• Sensitive actions resist replay/abuse
• Error responses are safe
• Data exposure is limited to the minimum required