raven/devdocs/modernization/SECURITY-REVIEW.md

AyaNova v8 security review

Whole-codebase security review requested by John (2026-10-23). Done in passes, one area per session; each pass ends with its findings written here and committed. Review only: no code changes. Each fix John approves becomes its own case.

Findings in this file describe weaknesses in shipped software. The repository is private; keep it that way while findings are open.

Status

Pass	Area	Status
1	Threat model and attack-surface map	Done 2026-10-23
2	Unauthenticated routes, login, tokens, password reset, 2FA	Next
3	Customer contact users: what they can reach and read
4	Report rendering (templates, the server-side browser, report data and download routes)
5	File handling: attachments, uploads, exports, logs, backups, restore, translations, logo
6	Raw SQL: data lists, saved filters, search, KPI, schedule, pick lists
7	Staff roles: the authenticated routes without a role check in the action (list below)
8	Email and notifications (direct-smtp, templates, delivery)
9	Client (XSS, token storage, npm audit triage), CORS, headers, Swagger UI
10	Deployment: installers, Linux setup script, nginx, systemd, config and data permissions
11	Sockeye public routes (licence fetch, trial requests)

The order is by risk to internet-facing servers. Findings from any pass go in Findings.

Scope

• In: the AyaNova server (raven/server/AyaNova) and client (raven-client); the Windows installers and launcher; Linux packages and the hosted subscription server setup script (sockeye-client/src/views/biz-subscription-server.vue); the configuration templates.
• Sockeye: only its public routes (licence fetch and trial requests). Its admin UI is used by John alone (revisit if agents use it later).
• Out: QBI.

Threat model

Deployments

Deployment	Reachable by	Notes
Hosted subscription droplet (Ubuntu, nginx + Let's Encrypt, www-data)	The internet	Most exposed. One company per droplet
Self-hosted Windows IIS	Often the internet	The manual recommends IIS when there is internet access
Self-hosted Linux server	LAN or internet	Customer's own reverse proxy, if any
Windows LAN / Linux desktop	Local network	Runs as the logged-in user (Linux desktop: as root with sudo ./AyaNova)
Windows standalone	The PC itself	Mostly evaluation (John)

Who might attack

1. Anyone on the internet (no login): 14 anonymous routes, the static client, Swagger UI, health check.
2. A customer contact (customer-user login, roles Customer/CustomerRestricted): should see only its own customer's data. The highest-value question in this review: can one customer's login read or change another customer's data, or staff data?
3. A staff user with limited roles: should not exceed them (e.g. a restricted tech reaching accounting, ops or user admin).
4. Someone holding a leaked token: a JWT or a download token (?t= in URLs, so it can land in browser history and proxy logs).
5. A local user on a Windows or Linux machine running AyaNova.
6. A report template author: report templates are JavaScript run in a browser on the server, with access to report data and the API.

What is at stake: customer business data (customers, work orders, invoices, attachments), user logins and passwords, the company's email reputation (SMTP), the licence, the server itself (code execution, the database, backups), and availability.

Attack-surface map

Authentication and authorisation design

• Login: POST auth returns a JWT (HS256, jose-jwt), signed with AYANOVA_JWT_SECRET (random per boot if not set). Validation (Startup.cs:255-279): signature, issuer ayanova.com, expiry, zero clock skew; audience not checked.
• One session per user: the user's latest token is stored (CurrentAuthToken); the middleware (Startup.cs:366-451) rejects any other valid token with E2004, except on /auth and notify/hello, and except local report-render requests: host 127.0.0.1, Request.IsLocal() and an rpl claim. Behind the hosted nginx the client address is forwarded (X-Forwarded-For, UseForwardedHeaders), so remote requests are not local. The exception skips only the latest-token check, not signature or expiry.
• Roles are read from the database on every request (middleware), not from the token. There is no route-level role attribute and no global "login required" policy: each controller has [Authorize] (login only) and each action calls Authorized.Has…Role(...) itself. A missing call means any logged-in user, customer contacts included.
• Download routes (?t=) take a per-user random download key set at login (DlKey, with expiry, AuthController.cs:272-276) instead of a JWT. Some check only that the key belongs to some active user (export, report, translation); others resolve the user and check rights (attachments, backups, logs). To verify in passes 4 and 5.
• CORS: any origin, any method, any header (Startup.cs:167-174). Tokens travel in the Authorization header, not cookies, which limits the impact; checked in pass 9.
• Swagger UI is public at /api-docs with the full API description (pass 9).

Routes

Generated with devdocs/modernization/security/routemap.py (python -I routemap.py <Controllers folder> <out.tsv>): 460 actions in 71 controllers. Regenerate it in later passes rather than trusting these counts if the code has changed.

Access	Actions
Anonymous ([AllowAnonymous])	14
Download key only (no attribute; check ?t=)	2 (attachment/download/{id}, backup/download/{fileName})
Login required ([Authorize])	444

Controllers without a class-level [Authorize] (Attachment, Backup, ServiceBank) were checked: every action has its own [Authorize] or is a download-key route; ServiceBank is entirely commented out.

Anonymous routes (pass 2 unless noted)

Route	Action
GET / (API root)	Index
POST auth	PostCreds (login)
POST auth/tfa-authenticate	TfaAuthenticate
POST auth/reset-password	ResetPassword
GET export/download/{fileName}	DownloadAsync (download key; pass 5)
GET health	Get
POST license/lc	lc
GET log-file/download/{logname}	DownloadLog (download key; pass 5)
GET logo/{size}	DownloadLogo
GET notify/hello	GetPreLoginPing
GET report/download/{fileName}	DownloadAsync (download key; pass 4)
GET report/export/{id}	DownloadTemplate (download key; pass 4)
POST translation/subset/{id}	SubSet
GET translation/download/{id}	DownloadTranslation (download key; pass 5)

Logged-in routes with no role or user-type check in the action itself (53, heuristic: the check may sit in the business layer, or the route may be harmless, such as lists, own settings or own notifications). Each is resolved in pass 7 unless an earlier pass covers it: GET server-info, GET role-rights, GET build-mode, POST auth/change-password, GET auth/totp, POST auth/totp-validate, GET authorization-roles/list, GET/POST/DELETE data-list-column-view…, GET data-list/listkeys, GET data-list/listfields, GET/PUT/POST/DELETE data-list-filter…, GET enum-list/list/{enumkey}, GET enum-list/listkeys, GET form-field-reference/{key}, GET global-biz-setting/client, GET job-operations/status|progress|logs/{gid}, POST job-operations/request-cancel, POST kpi, POST license/permanently-erase-all-data[-keep-tax-codes], GET notify/new-count, GET notify/app-notifications, DELETE notify/{id}, POST notify/direct-message, POST notify/direct-smtp, GET notify-subscription/list, GET pick-list/template/list, GET pick-list/template/listfields/{ayaType}, POST report/data, POST report/upload, POST schedule/svc, POST schedule/user, POST search, GET server-state, GET tag-list/list, GET tag-list/cloudlist, GET translation/{id}, GET translation/list, GET translation/translationkeycoverage, POST translation/subset, POST translation/upload, POST trial/seed, GET user/amsu, GET workorder/customer/{id}.

Already resolved from that list in pass 1:

• license/permanently-erase-all-data[-keep-tax-codes]: SuperUser only (user id 1) plus the typed confirmation i understand (LicenseController.cs:248-275). OK.
• trial/seed: only with a trial licence and an empty database (only SuperUser exists then) (TrialController.cs). OK.
• notify/direct-smtp and notify/direct-message: see F3 and F4.

Highest-interest leads for later passes: POST search and POST kpi (do they filter by role and customer?), POST report/data and the report routes (pass 4), GET workorder/customer/{id} (customer users reaching other customers' work orders?), POST schedule/svc|user, GET user/amsu, POST report/upload and POST translation/upload (who may upload; what the content can do), job-operations/* (another user's job logs?).

Other ways in

• Report templates: user-authored JavaScript and Handlebars run in a headless Chrome on the server (biz/ReportBiz.cs), with report data, a server-issued token for API calls from the template (rpl claim), and helpers such as ayPutToAPI (pass 4).
• Raw SQL: data-list filters and sorts (DataList/*; case 4676 fixed the numeric and role values), saved filters, search, KPI, schedules (pass 6).
• Files: attachments (upload, download, move, maintenance), exports, report files and templates, translation upload and download, logo, log files, backups and their deletion (passes 4 and 5).
• Background jobs: backup (pg_dump, fixed in this release to run without a shell), notifications, licence fetch (outbound to the licence servers), report rendering, seeding.
• Email: SMTP settings, notification templates, direct-smtp (pass 8).
• Configuration and secrets: config.json (database password, JWT secret), logs (do they contain tokens or passwords?), the boot log's config line (password redacted).
• Deployment: Windows installers (folder permissions), the launcher, the hosted setup script, nginx headers, the systemd unit (no hardening options), Linux desktop running as root (pass 10).

Findings

Severity: Critical (remote, no login, or full takeover) · High (any login, or one customer reaching another's data; or serious abuse of the company's resources) · Medium (needs a specific role, local access or an unusual setup) · Low (hardening, information). Status: candidate (seen in code, not yet confirmed), confirmed, fixed in case NNNN, accepted.

ID	Severity	Status	Title
F1	High	candidate	Placeholder JWT secret in the LAN/IIS and Linux server config templates
F2	Medium	candidate	Windows installers give all local users modify rights on the program and data folders
F3	High	candidate	Any logged-in user, customer contacts included, can send arbitrary email through the company's SMTP server
F4	Low	candidate	Any logged-in user can send an in-app notification to any user

F1 Placeholder JWT secret (from the 8.3.0 installer test)

dist/assets/lan-install-config.json and dist/assets/linux-server/config.json ship AYANOVA_JWT_SECRET set to a placeholder that is also printed in the manual. The manual tells users to change it (Linux: "optional but recommended"). An installation that keeps it signs logins with a publicly known secret: anyone who knows it can mint a token for any user id, including SuperUser, as far as the signature goes. What else such a forged token needs (the per-user latest-token check, CurrentAuthToken) is to be confirmed in pass 2, as it may limit this considerably. Hosted droplets are not affected (the setup script generates a random secret since 64d8f62; droplets created earlier: to check). Fix options: generate a random secret at install time; refuse to boot with the placeholder; or treat the placeholder as unset (random per boot).

F2 Windows folder permissions (from the 8.3.0 installer test)

lan.iss and standalone.iss set Permissions: users-modify on {app} (the program folder) and on {commonappdata}\ayanova (data: database for standalone, backups, attachments, logs). Any local Windows user can therefore replace program files that run as the user who starts AyaNova or as the IIS application pool, and can read the database files and backups. Matters on shared or terminal-server machines. The program-folder permission originally let the report browser download beside the app; since 8.3.0 it downloads under the data folder, so {app} may no longer need it. To confirm in pass 10.

F3 notify/direct-smtp open to every logged-in user

NotifyController.SendNotifySmtpDirectMessage: no role or user-type check; the code comment says this is intentional (Customer form, and API users emailing rendered reports, case 4310). Any logged-in user, customer contacts included, can send an email with any recipient (ToAddress), subject and HTML body through the company's configured SMTP server, from its address. On a hosted or internet-facing server one customer-contact login is enough to send phishing or spam under the company's name. To confirm in pass 8: which callers the client actually has, and the narrowest check that keeps them working (staff roles only; or recipient restricted to the object's own address).

F4 notify/direct-message open to every logged-in user

Any logged-in user can add a general notification, with the sender's name and any text, for any user id. Low on its own (in-app only); relevant with F3 for social engineering of staff by a customer contact. Pass 8.

Pass log

Date	Pass	Result
2026-10-23	1 Threat model and map	Scope agreed with John. Middleware, JWT validation, role model, download keys, CORS and Swagger read. Route map generated (460 actions; script kept in security/routemap.py). No route lacks authentication by accident. 53 logged-in routes have no role check in the action: 3 resolved (erase data, trial seed: OK; direct SMTP: F3), the rest assigned to later passes. Local-request exception not reachable through the hosted nginx. Findings F1 to F4 recorded as candidates