# Security Review & Audit (2026)

**Date:** February 9, 2026
**Reviewer:** Rahul Dass (Lead Maintainer) & Automated Systems
**Status:** ✅ Passed

## Overview

This document summarizes the security review performed for the OpenSSF Best Practices Gold Badge. The review covers the QWED Verification Protocol (v3.0.1) and its associated SDKs.

## Methodology

The security review was conducted using a combination of:
1.  **Automated SAST:** Snyk Code scanning (configured in `.github/workflows/snyk.yml`) and manual CodeQL analysis.
2.  **Dependency Analysis:** Automated vulnerability scanning of `pyproject.toml` dependencies via Snyk.
3.  **Manual Architecture Review:** Threat modeling workshop based on `docs/ASSURANCE_CASE.md`.
4.  **Adversarial Testing:** Vibe coding tests using `opensource_release/adversarial_vibe_coding_tests.py` to simulate attacks.

## Scope & Boundaries

-   **In Scope:**
    -   Core Verification Engines (`src/qwed_new/core/`)
    -   CLI Interface (`qwed_sdk/cli.py`)
    -   Python SDK (`qwed_sdk/`)
    -   Authentication Middleware

-   **Out of Scope:**
    -   Third-party LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic) - assumed untrusted.
    -   User's deployment environment (OS level security).

## Key Findings & Mitigations

| Finding ID | Severity | Description | Mitigation | Status |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| **SEC-001** | High | Code Injection in Logic Engine | Implemented `LogicVerifier` using whitelisted Z3 functions (`SafeEvaluator`) and sanitized constraint evaluation (`ConstraintSanitizer`) to prevent `eval()` of arbitrary code. See `src/qwed_new/core/logic_verifier.py`. | ✅ Fixed |
| **SEC-002** | Medium | XML Entity Expansion (Billion Laughs) | Disabled external entity processing in XML parsers used for certain structured outputs. | ✅ Fixed |
| **SEC-003** | Low | Missing Security Headers in Docs | Added CSP and HSTS headers to documentation site configuration. | ✅ Fixed |
| **SEC-004** | Critical | Exposed API Keys in Logs | Implemented PII masking and redaction for `Authorization` headers. See `qwed_sdk/pii_detector.py`. | ✅ Fixed |

## Hardening Measures

-   **Least Privilege:** The core engine runs with read-only access to the filesystem except for temporary scratchpads.
-   **Input Validation:** All LLM outputs are treated as untrusted and validated against strict schemas (Pydantic).
-   **Sandboxing:** Code execution engines (Python/SQL) run in isolated environments (Docker containers in production, restricted namespaces in local dev).

## Conclusion

The QWED Verification Protocol is intended to align with the OpenSSF Best Practices Gold criteria. Continuous monitoring is enabled via GitHub Actions CodeQL and Snyk workflows.
