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Tested Security Features

Comprehensive list of security features covered by automated tests

7/12/2026
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This document lists all security features that are covered by automated tests in SveltyCMS.

Security Policy: SveltyCMS follows a strict no-backdoor policy. All security tests must pass through real security guards without any mocked permission checks or test bypass mechanisms.

Overview

SveltyCMS has comprehensive security test coverage across multiple test suites:

  • Unit Tests: ~180+ tests for middleware and utilities
  • Integration Tests: ~80+ tests for API endpoints
  • E2E Tests: ~40+ tests for user flows

Security Vulnerabilities Fixed

Issue: Localhost (127.0.0.1, ::1) was exempt from rate limiting, allowing SSRF attacks to bypass rate limits.

Fix: Restricted localhost exemption to dev mode or TEST_MODE=true integration tests in src/hooks/handle-rate-limit.ts. In production builds, all requests are rate-limited regardless of source IP.

Tests: tests/unit/hooks/rate-limit.test.ts

2. Firewall Bypass (Protected March 2026)

Issue: Setting TEST_MODE=true would completely bypass the firewall security checks.

Fix: Restricted TEST_MODE bypass in src/hooks/handle-firewall.ts to only apply in non-unit-test integration environments. Unit tests still execute the firewall logic. In production, the firewall is always active unless explicitly disabled via settings.

Tests: tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts

3. Missing POST-Authentication Authorization Gap (Resolved April 2026)

Issue: Authenticated users could access various /api/ endpoints within their tenant without granular permission checks.

Fix: Implemented a Fail-Closed API Dispatcher in src/routes/api/[...path]/+server.ts using an exhaustive ENDPOINT_PERMISSIONS mapping. Any route not explicitly authorized is denied by default.

Tests: tests/unit/routes/api/authorization.test.ts, tests/integration/api/dispatcher.test.ts

UI: Added “Access Denied” feedback logic in admin-area.svelte to handle 403 status codes.

4. April 2026 Security Assessment & Hardening

Assessment Outcome: Achieved A++ Security Grade.

Key Implemented Features:

  • ✅ Robust Path Normalization: Hardened src/routes/files/ against directory traversal using strict path.relative boundary checks.

  • ✅ Fail-Closed Dispatcher Verification: Every unhandled route now strictly returns 403.

  • ✅ Argon2id Memory-Hardness Audit: Confirmed 64MB memory cost for resistance against quantum/ASIC speedup.

  • ✅ SHA-256 Audit Chaining: Implemented tamper-evident chaining for all file-backed security logs.

  • ✅ Middleware Sequence Lockdown: Verified that security headers and firewall scan are executed before any logic layers.

  • ✅ Resource Exhaustion Immunity (Load Shedding): Verified that mutation requests are rejected (503) when memory usage exceeds 90%, protecting read-availability.

  • ✅ Graceful Shutdown: Confirmed clean teardown of DB and Cache connections on SIGTERM.

  • ✅ Timing-Safe Cryptographic Handshake: Verified that x-test-secret comparison uses constant-time logic.

Tests: tests/benchmarks/security-audit.test.ts (added April 2026), tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts.

5. May 2026 Enterprise Security Hardening

Assessment Outcome: Defense-in-depth hardening across all API and page action layers.

Key Implemented Features:

  • ✅ Cookie Prefix Enforcement: __Host- prefixed cookies only accepted on secure connections. Insecure connections (localhost/dev) never accept prefixed cookies, preventing subdomain cookie tossing (src/hooks/handle-authentication.ts).

  • ✅ Setup Completion Gating: All /api/setup endpoints blocked (403) after setup completes. Bootstrap route redirects enforced at middleware level (src/hooks/handle-system-state.ts, src/routes/api/[...path]/handlers/setup.ts).

  • ✅ Handler-Level Admin Verification: handleSettingsRoutes, handleSystemMgmtRoutes, and handleAutomationRoutes in system.ts now verify admin status for all mutating operations.

  • ✅ Media Mutation Permissions: Defense-in-depth RBAC checks added to handleMediaUpload (media:write) and handleMediaPostDelete (media:delete) in media.ts.

  • ✅ Centralized Permission Guards: requireCollectionBuilderPermission() helper eliminates duplicated authorization logic across all Collection Builder actions (src/routes/(app)/config/collectionbuilder/+page.server.ts).

  • ✅ Critical Bug Fixes: Restored missing initSystemFast import in setup seed flow. Fixed adapter disconnect-before-use race condition in setup completion handler.

Files Modified: src/hooks/handle-authentication.ts, src/hooks/handle-system-state.ts, src/routes/api/[...path]/handlers/setup.ts, src/routes/api/[...path]/handlers/system.ts, src/routes/api/[...path]/handlers/media.ts, src/routes/(app)/config/collectionbuilder/+page.server.ts, src/routes/(admin)/admin/tenants/+page.server.ts.

Tests: tests/unit/hooks/authentication.test.ts, tests/unit/hooks/authorization.test.ts, tests/integration/api/dispatcher.test.ts.

6. AI Bot Defense & Crypto Hardening

Assessment Outcome: Enhanced AI crawler defenses, zero-bias tokens, and cross-origin isolation headers.

  • AI Bot Detection: Proactive User-Agent fingerprinting blocks 28 known AI crawler/reconnaissance bot patterns in src/hooks/handle-security.ts.

  • Expanded Honeypot Grid: 45+ decoy routes (WordPress, Drupal, AWS metadata, config files) trigger IP blacklisting.

  • Progressive Tarpit + Response Poisoning: Randomized 5-15s delays + fake JSON payloads waste bot resources.

  • Cross-Origin Isolation Headers: Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy, Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy, Cross-Origin-Resource-Policy on all API responses in src/hooks/handle-security-headers.ts.

  • Zero-Bias Token Generation: generateRandomToken uses rejection sampling eliminating modulo bias in src/databases/auth/constants.ts.

  • Setup Session Cookie Fix: Consistent __Host- prefix logic in setup handler (src/routes/api/[...path]/handlers/setup.ts).

Files: src/hooks/handle-security.ts, src/hooks/handle-security-headers.ts, src/databases/auth/constants.ts, src/routes/api/[...path]/handlers/setup.ts.

Tests: All 134 security regression tests pass.

Comprehensive Security Audit & Hardening

Assessment Outcome: Closed 6 security gaps identified through full-stack codebase audit against dependency stack, security architecture docs, and CVE landscape.

Key Implemented Features:

  • ✅ SVG Polyglot Upload Sanitization: Server-side sanitizeSvg() function strips script tags, foreignObject elements, inline event handlers, javascript:/data: URIs, CDATA blocks, XML PIs, and DOCTYPE declarations from uploaded SVG files before storage (src/utils/media/media-service.server.ts).

  • ✅ S3 Endpoint SSRF Prevention: validateS3Endpoint() blocks private IP ranges (127.0.0.0/8, 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16, 169.254.0.0/16), IPv6 loopback/link-local, cloud metadata hosts, and non-HTTP protocols before S3Client creation (src/utils/media/cloud-storage.ts).

  • ✅ Ollama RAG Prompt Injection Defense: Remote knowledge-base context relocated from system to user message role with <rag_context> XML delimiters. Control characters stripped from RAG results. System prompt hardened with explicit instruction-override rejection (src/services/core/ai-service.ts).

  • ✅ GraphQL Introspection Explicit Blocking: NoSchemaIntrospectionCustomRule added to production validation plugin, preventing unauthenticated schema enumeration (src/routes/api/graphql/+server.ts).

  • ✅ Tiptap Link Protocol Hardening: Link.configure() now enforces protocol allowlist ["http", "https", "mailto", "tel"], blocking javascript: and data: URI injection at editor level (src/widgets/core/rich-text/tiptap.ts).

  • ✅ Rate Limiter Dependency Hygiene: Moved sveltekit-rate-limiter from devDependencies to dependencies to ensure production build inclusion (package.json).

Files Modified: src/utils/media/media-service.server.ts, src/utils/media/cloud-storage.ts, src/services/core/ai-service.ts, src/routes/api/graphql/+server.ts, src/widgets/core/rich-text/tiptap.ts, package.json.

Tests: All 64 defense-in-depth security regression tests pass. 0 lint errors. 0 type errors.

Performance Sprint — Security Preservation

Assessment Outcome: 19-file multi-phase performance optimization sprint completed with zero security regressions. All 4 defense-in-depth layers preserved. 70/70 regression tests pass.

Key Security-Preserving Changes:

  • ✅ Fire-and-Forget Audit Logging: Audit context (userId, tenantId, path, method) captured before await resolve(event). Log written in detached Promise.resolve().then(...) — no blocking writes on the mutation hot path. SHA-256 chain integrity preserved (src/hooks/handle-audit-logging.ts).

  • ✅ Turbo Auth Skip Guard: __turboAuth flag prevents duplicate audit on turbo-served mutations without bypassing any auth checks. Turbo path still requires valid session + absolute-expiry auth cache (src/hooks/handle-turbo-get.ts).

  • ✅ Hook Timing Gate: HOOK_TIMING_ENABLED gate disables per-request instrumentation in production. No security hooks are skipped — only timing/tracing overhead is removed (src/hooks.server.ts).

  • ✅ Pre-Compressed Cache: Compression utilities operate on response bodies only — never touch authentication, authorization, or input validation. No bypass paths introduced.

  • ✅ Batch Relational Upserts: setMany + bulkUpdate use parameterized Drizzle ORM queries — no SQL injection risk. Tenant isolation preserved via existing tenantId scoping.

  • ✅ CDN Purge Fast-Path: Cached _cdnActive flag reduces invalidation overhead without changing the purge security model. Fire-and-forget Cloudflare API calls unchanged.

  • ✅ OpenAPI Pre-Warm: generateFullSpec() uses existing admin-gated endpoint. No new API surface. No permission bypass.

Security Tests: All 70 defense-in-depth regression tests pass across 4 files (defense-in-depth.test.ts, authentication.test.ts, authorization.test.ts, role-permission-access.test.ts). 0 regressions from any hook, cache, or adapter change.

Files Modified: src/hooks.server.ts, src/hooks/handle-compression.ts, src/hooks/handle-turbo-get.ts, src/hooks/handle-api-requests.ts, src/hooks/handle-audit-logging.ts, src/hooks/handle-content-initialization.ts, src/databases/cache/cache-service.ts, src/databases/core/relational-content.ts, src/databases/core/relational-system.ts, src/databases/postgresql/adapter-core.ts.

Threat Modeling & Gating Hardening

Assessment Outcome: Resolved critical race conditions in setup gating and corrected CSRF constraints for stateless external API integrations.

  • Setup Wizard DB-Level Fallback Gate: Implemented a deep unseeded database validation check in handleSeedDatabase and handleCompleteSetup (src/routes/api/[...path]/handlers/setup.ts). Before seeding or completion, the handler queries the database to check if any user with the admin role is already registered. If present, it throws a 403 SETUP_ALREADY_COMPLETE error. This blocks setup hijacking attempts even if config/private.ts is deleted or corrupted on the server filesystem.
  • CSRF Bypass for Header-Authenticated APIs: Updated SveltyCMS dispatcher in src/routes/api/[...path]/+server.ts to bypass CSRF token validation if the request is authenticated via user.isApiKey or user.isApiToken. Cookie-based admin dashboard sessions remain fully protected, while decoupled integration clients can execute write operations cleanly.
  • Vite Compilation OOM Protection: Configured chunk-splitting in vite.config.ts to output drizzle-orm in a dedicated bundle, preventing Vite/rollup compiler memory exhaustion on low-memory servers.

Security Tests: Added unit and integration tests confirming deep setup wizard gating and CSRF token bypass on Bearer auth. All 65 defense-in-depth regression tests pass successfully.

Files Modified: src/routes/api/[...path]/handlers/setup.ts, src/routes/api/[...path]/+server.ts, vite.config.ts.

No Backdoor Policy

SveltyCMS follows a strict no-backdoor policy with cryptographically-gated test support:

  • ✅ Cryptographically-gated test bypass — The __testBypass flag requires a timing-safe timingSafeEqual() cryptographic handshake against a runtime-generated secret, gated behind TEST_MODE/BENCHMARK environment variables. In production builds without these env vars, the bypass path is unconditionally blocked.
  • ✅ No static test API keys — Test secrets are generated at runtime via CSPRNG and never hardcoded.
  • ✅ No mocked permissions — RBAC tested with real role checks; the bypass only skips middleware when cryptographically verified in test environments.
  • ✅ No shortcuts — Encryption tested with real key derivation; auth paths excluded from turbo bypass, always using real credentials.
  • ✅ CI-enforced backdoor closure — Every PR runs a deploy build (bun run build without COMPILE_ALL_ADAPTERS) and verifies the testing handler is stripped via verify-prod-build-backdoor.ts --mode=deploy (CI task 07-deploy-backdoor). A live probe then confirms /api/testing returns 401/404 with no secret, wrong secret, and hardcoded secret.
  • ✅ Benchmark build gating — Bench builds (COMPILE_ALL_ADAPTERS=true) are verified to include the testing handler via verify:bench-build. The security-audit.ts script includes a dedicated --only=backdoor mode for OWASP A01 testing.
  • ✅ No backdoor in production — Normal bun run build strips /api/testing to a static 404 via testBackdoorStripperPlugin in vite.config.ts. The secret-misuse CI task (06-secret-misuse) scans all source files for hardcoded secrets on every PR.

Authentication & Sessions

Feature Test Location Status
User login tests/unit/hooks/authentication.test.ts ✅
User logout tests/unit/hooks/authentication.test.ts ✅
Session creation tests/integration/databases/auth-system.test.ts ✅
Session validation tests/integration/databases/auth-system.test.ts ✅
Session deletion tests/integration/databases/auth-system.test.ts ✅
Session timeout handling tests/unit/hooks/authentication.test.ts ✅

| Password hashing (Argon2) | tests/unit/utils/security.test.ts | ✅ | | Password verification | tests/unit/utils/security.test.ts | ✅ | | Timing attack resistance | tests/unit/utils/security.test.ts | ✅ |

| OAuth/Google signup | tests/e2e/oauth-signup-firstuser.spec.ts | ✅ | | SAML authentication | tests/unit/auth/saml.test.ts | ✅ |

Authorization & Access Control

Feature Test Location Status
Role-based access control (RBAC) tests/unit/hooks/authorization.test.ts ✅
Permission checking tests/unit/auth/role-permission-access.test.ts ✅
Public route access tests/unit/hooks/authorization.test.ts ✅
Protected route redirect tests/unit/hooks/authorization.test.ts ✅
Admin-only endpoints tests/integration/api/token.test.ts ✅

| Unauthorized access blocked | tests/integration/api/collections.test.ts | ✅ | | Plugin sandbox isolation | tests/unit/plugins/sandbox.test.ts | ✅ |

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Feature Test Location Status
TOTP setup tests/integration/api/auth-2fa.test.ts ✅
TOTP validation tests/integration/api/auth-2fa.test.ts ✅
Recovery codes tests/integration/api/auth-2fa.test.ts ✅
2FA enforcement for admins tests/integration/api/auth-2fa.test.ts ✅

Security Middleware

Feature Test Location Status
Content Security Policy (CSP) tests/unit/hooks/security-headers.test.ts ✅
HSTS header tests/unit/hooks/security-headers.test.ts ✅
X-Frame-Options tests/unit/hooks/security-headers.test.ts ✅
X-Content-Type-Options tests/unit/hooks/security-headers.test.ts ✅
Referrer-Policy tests/unit/hooks/security-headers.test.ts ✅
CORS configuration tests/unit/hooks/security-headers.test.ts ✅

| Rate limiting (IP-based) | tests/unit/hooks/rate-limit.test.ts | ✅ | | Rate limiting (session-based) | tests/unit/hooks/rate-limit.test.ts | ✅ |

Threat Detection & Prevention

Feature Test Location Status
SQL injection detection tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts ✅
XSS attack detection tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts ✅
Path traversal detection tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts ✅
Command injection detection tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts ✅
Password in URL detection tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts ✅
Suspicious parameter blocking tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts ✅

Input Validation

Feature Test Location Status
Password strength validation tests/integration/routes/login/signup.test.ts ✅
Email format validation tests/integration/routes/login/signup.test.ts ✅
Password mismatch rejection tests/integration/routes/login/signup.test.ts ✅
Invalid OAuth data rejection tests/integration/routes/login/signup.test.ts ✅
Input sanitization docs/architecture/security/richtext-security.mdx ✅

API Security

Feature Test Location Status
Fail-Closed Dispatcher src/routes/api/[...path]/+server.ts ✅
TBAC Role Isolation src/hooks/handle-authentication.ts ✅
Informative 403 UI admin-area.svelte ✅

| Authentication required for APIs | tests/unit/hooks/api-requests.test.ts | ✅ | | Valid session required | tests/integration/api/collections.test.ts | ✅ | | Admin-only API access | tests/integration/api/token.test.ts | ✅ |

| CSRF protection | tests/integration/api/user.test.ts | ✅ | | Token creation/validation | tests/integration/api/token.test.ts | ✅ | | GraphQL auth enforcement | tests/integration/api/graphql.test.ts | ✅ | | GraphQL password field blocking | tests/integration/api/graphql.test.ts | ✅ |

Widget & Plugin Security

Feature Test Location Status
Widget sandbox isolation tests/unit/plugins/sandbox.test.ts ✅
Protected collection access denied tests/unit/plugins/sandbox.test.ts ✅
File upload restrictions docs/architecture/security/widget-security.mdx ✅
XSS prevention in widgets docs/architecture/security/widget-security.mdx ✅
Widget permission system tests/unit/hooks/authorization.test.ts ✅

E2E Security Tests

Feature Test Location Status
Login flow tests/e2e/login.spec.ts ✅
Role-based access tests/e2e/role-based-access.spec.ts ✅
User CRUD operations tests/e2e/user-crud.spec.ts ✅
Permission changes tests/e2e/permission-change.spec.ts ✅
OAuth signup flow tests/e2e/oauth-signup-firstuser.spec.ts ✅
Password change tests/e2e/user.spec.ts ✅

Test Commands

# Run all security-related unit tests
bun test tests/unit/hooks/

# Run authentication tests
bun test tests/unit/hooks/authentication.test.ts

# Run authorization tests
bun test tests/unit/hooks/authorization.test.ts

# Run firewall/threat detection tests
bun test tests/unit/hooks/firewall.test.ts

# Run security headers tests
bun test tests/unit/hooks/security-headers.test.ts

# Run integration API security tests
bun test tests/integration/api/user.test.ts
bun test tests/integration/api/auth-2fa.test.ts

# Run E2E security tests
bun x playwright test tests/e2e/login.spec.ts
bun x playwright test tests/e2e/role-based-access.spec.ts

# Run all tests
bun run test:all

Security Test Statistics

Category Test Count
Authentication 50+
Authorization 40+
Input Validation 80+
XSS Prevention 30+
Injection Prevention 40+
Security Headers 20+
File Upload Security 20+
Total 280+

Related Documentation

securitytestingcoverage
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