Findings from the 2026-06-24 security review, now mandatory before this
platform leaves the LAN for a public VPS (see budget/externalization note):
- Timing attack on admin password: hmac.compare_digest instead of !=
- CORS wildcard removed, restricted to ALLOWED_ORIGINS (needed for credentials)
- hCaptcha now fails closed on network error instead of open
- HMAC signatures use the full SHA-256 digest instead of a 64-bit truncation
- Consultation-scoped submissions were missing the consent/cooldown checks
the global submission route already had
- Admin search capped at 200 chars (ILIKE cost)
- Webhook URLs validated against SSRF (private/loopback/link-local/metadata
IPs rejected, re-checked at trigger time too, redirects not followed)
- Flood tracker backed by Redis when REDIS_URL is set (shared across Gunicorn
workers, survives restarts), falls back to in-memory otherwise
- Admin session moved from sessionStorage/Bearer token to an httpOnly+Secure+
SameSite=Strict cookie; new /api/admin/logout and /api/admin/session routes
Also found while wiring ProxyFix for the cookie's Secure flag: the app never
told Flask about the Nginx reverse proxy, so request.remote_addr saw Nginx's
own IP for every request in production — silently breaking rate limiting,
flood detection, and IP blacklist (everyone would collapse onto one shared
key). Added ProxyFix (1 hop).
CSV exports now stream instead of loading everything into memory. AI prompts
delimit citizen-submitted content explicitly and instruct the model to treat
it as inert data, never instructions, to reduce prompt injection surface.
Docs (DEX.md, SECURITE_ANTI_ABUS.md, README.md, DEPLOIEMENT.md) and
dev-local.sh updated to match.
Persistence: PostgreSQL table ip_abuse (ip_hash SHA-256, rejection_count,
timestamps, last_idea_id, blacklisted_at, expires_at). No raw IP stored.
Logic:
- First illegal contribution: recorded, tolerated (benefit of the doubt)
- Second illegal contribution: 30-day block (IP_BLACKLIST_DAYS, configurable)
- Counter is cumulative — valid contributions do not reset it
- Block check fires before all other validations in both submit routes
Backend:
- database.py: check_ip_blacklist, record_ip_rejection, get_ip_blacklist,
remove_ip_blacklist; ip_abuse table created in init_db()
- app.py: _get_ip_hash() helper; blacklist check + record in submit_idea()
and submit_consultation_idea(); admin routes GET/DELETE /api/admin/ip-blacklist
Admin panel: new "Blacklist" tab showing active entries with hash, rejection
count, trigger idea id, dates; "Lever" button for manual removal
Docs:
- SECURITE_ANTI_ABUS.md: section 8 describing the mechanism, RGPD basis,
limits, and IP_BLACKLIST_DAYS env var
- privacy-policy.tsx: IP row updated to reflect hash storage + legal basis
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
billisdead
