Security Checklist

MONOPOLY — Security Hardening Checklist

Network Security

• All services inside private VPC; only LB/API GW exposed publicly
• Security groups follow least-privilege (deny all, allow specific ports/CIDRs)
• NACLs as secondary defense layer
• WAF enabled with OWASP top 10 ruleset
• DDoS protection (Cloudflare / AWS Shield Standard minimum)
• VPN or Private Link for inter-service communication in multi-region

Authentication & Authorization

• JWT tokens with short expiry (15 min access, 7 day refresh)
• OAuth 2.0 / OIDC for third-party auth
• MFA enforced for admin accounts
• RBAC or ABAC for authorization
• No secrets in JWT payload (use opaque references)
• Token revocation strategy (Redis blocklist or short TTL)

API Security

• Rate limiting at API gateway (per user, per IP, per endpoint)
• Input validation and sanitization on all endpoints
• SQL injection prevention (parameterized queries, ORM)
• XSS prevention (output encoding, CSP headers)
• CSRF protection (SameSite cookies, CSRF tokens)
• CORS policy locked down (not wildcard *)
• HTTP security headers (HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options)

Data Security

• Encryption in transit (TLS 1.2+ everywhere, TLS 1.3 preferred)
• Encryption at rest (AES-256 for DBs, S3 SSE)
• PII data identified, minimized, and encrypted at field level where needed
• Database backups encrypted
• No sensitive data in logs (PII, passwords, tokens, card numbers)

Secrets Management

• No secrets in code or environment variables in plain text
• Secrets manager in use (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager)
• Secrets rotation automated
• IAM roles for service-to-service auth (not static credentials)

Supply Chain & Dependencies

• Dependency scanning (Snyk, Dependabot, npm audit)
• Container image scanning (Trivy, ECR scanning)
• Pin dependency versions in production
• SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) generated for compliance

Incident Response

• Audit logs for all admin actions and data access
• Alerting on anomalous access patterns
• Incident response runbook documented
• Data breach notification process defined (GDPR 72-hour rule)
• Regular penetration testing scheduled

Compliance (as applicable)

• GDPR: data residency, right to deletion, consent tracking
• PCI-DSS: if handling card data — never store raw PANs
• HIPAA: if health data — encryption, audit logs, BAA with vendors
• SOC 2 Type II: access control, availability, confidentiality evidence

Limitations

• This is a reference document and may not cover all edge cases. Always verify architectures before production.