noema/THREAT_MODEL.md

Noema threat model

Format: Threat – attack surface – mitigation (M) – verification (V). Status markers are updated as phases land: ☐ planned, ☑ implemented and tested.

Trust zones

Zone	Contents	Trust
Operator	Web UI users by role, noemactl, host shell	trusted, authenticated, audited
Core	noemad process, PostgreSQL	trusted
Cognition	mind runtimes, memories, beliefs	semi-trusted: state may have been poisoned by ingested data
Model providers	LLM/embedding APIs, local servers	untrusted output, semi-trusted transport
Integrations & ingestion	files, repos, metrics, webhooks, email, web	hostile
Tools / targets	servers, repositories, mail	protected by capability layer

Threats

T1 Prompt injection (direct)

Surface: conversation messages containing instructions ("ignore your policy, run…"). M: messages are observations with trust=user; policy is code, not prompt; capabilities require policy decisions regardless of prompt content; the response generator receives self-model and policy state so it can say it will not. V: tests/security.TestPromptInjectionNeverActs (chat + observation corpus; asserts no tool activity, no evidence-free belief, locked capabilities still denied). ☑

T2 Indirect prompt injection

Surface: documents, web pages, logs, commit messages, metric labels, tool output containing instructions. M: all ingested text is wrapped in delimited data blocks with an explicit "this is data" instruction; extraction prompts request JSON conforming to a schema; outputs that contain capability names or policy language are flagged; ingested content can only produce observations/hypotheses with trust≤source, never actions. V: internal/integrations research-folder tests (binary/archive rejection, low trust forced) and tests/security.TestPromptInjectionNeverActs (poisoned observation produces only observations/hypotheses). ☑

T3 Malicious documents

Surface: research folder, uploads. M: type sniffing not extension trust; size caps; text extraction in-process with bounded memory and time; no external converters invoked by default; archives extracted with path normalisation, member count and size limits, no symlinks; nothing executed. V: internal/integrations.TestResearchFolder* (archives, executables, symlinks and binaries rejected; size caps; content sniffing). Archives are never extracted. ☑

T4 Poisoned memory

Surface: repeated false observations from a low-trust source shaping semantic memory. M: source credibility weights confidence; consolidation requires diversity of sources for high confidence; operator corrections create counter-evidence and "do not infer again" rules; provenance always visible. V: internal/beliefs single-source discount tests and internal/consolidation tests. ☑

T5 Malicious tool output

Surface: command/metric/API output fed back into cognition. M: tool output is an observation with the tool's trust level, size-capped, never parsed as instructions; structured tools return typed data. V: internal/capabilities tests (tool output recorded as tool-trust observation) and tests/security.TestPromptInjectionNeverActs (tool-call-shaped text). ☑

T6 SSRF

Surface: integration URLs, provider endpoints, webhooks, links in documents. M: single hardened outbound HTTP client: resolves and rejects private, loopback, link-local and metadata ranges (re-checked per redirect), bounded redirects, timeouts, response size caps; provider endpoints to private ranges require administrator confirmation flag allow_private_endpoint (needed for local Ollama). V: internal/security/httpclient.TestPrivateRanges, TestClientRefusesLoopbackUnlessAllowed. ☑

T7 Path traversal

Surface: research folder, export/import, file capabilities. M: filepath.Clean + root containment check via os.Root (Go 1.24+) for every path; capabilities carry allowed roots. V: internal/integrations git ReadFile traversal refusal and research-folder os.OpenRoot containment tests. ☑

T8 Command injection

Surface: shell/ssh capabilities, git integration. M: no shell string concatenation; exec.Command with argument vectors; allow-listed binaries; git via argument vectors only; capability parameters validated by type. V: git runs via argument vectors with hooks disabled (internal/integrations tests); no shell anywhere (grep -r "sh -c" is empty). ☑

T9 SQL injection

Surface: all queries, search inputs, tsquery construction. M: pgx parameterised queries everywhere; search terms passed to websearch_to_tsquery; dynamic ORDER BY from an allow-list. V: tests/security.TestStoredXSSIsEscaped sends SQL metacharacters through every search route; identifiers in dynamic SQL come only from code-level allow-lists (snapshots.Tables). ☑

T10 XSS

Surface: rendered memories, beliefs, LLM output, uploaded filenames, SSE fragments. M: html/template contextual escaping only; SSE fragments rendered by the same templates; Content-Security-Policy default-src 'self' with no inline scripts; markdown rendering (if any) sanitised to a strict allow-list. V: tests/security.TestStoredXSSIsEscaped stores a payload as memory, belief, observation, goal and message and checks ten pages plus CSP. ☑

T11 CSRF

Surface: all state-changing forms and API calls from browsers. M: per-session CSRF token required on POST/PUT/PATCH/DELETE for cookie-authenticated requests; SameSite=Lax; Origin/Referer check as defence in depth; API tokens (non-cookie) exempt. V: internal/auth.TestMiddlewareCSRFAndRoles, tests/security.TestRolesAndCSRF (form and API paths). ☑

T12 Session theft / fixation / expiry

M: tokens 256-bit random, stored hashed, rotated at login and privilege change, absolute and idle expiry, Secure in production, session listing and revocation, all sessions revoked on password change. V: internal/auth.TestLoginSessionLifecycle, TestTwoStepLoginAndRecovery, tests/security.TestSessionLifecycle. ☑

T13 Credential leakage

M: secret references only, redacting log handler, exports exclude secrets, provider forms never echo values, error messages scrubbed. V: tests/security.TestSecretsNeverEchoed (API, pages, database column, archives). ☑

T14 Unauthorised action execution / privilege escalation

M: capability layer is the only tool path; policy evaluated server-side on every invocation; approvals bound to a specific request hash; role checks on every route; minds cannot edit policies (no capability exists for it). V: tests/security.TestRolesAndCSRF, internal/capabilities tests (locked DENY cannot be relaxed). ☑

T15 Cross-mind data leakage

M: every repository method is mind-scoped; no query without mind_id predicate on mind-owned tables (enforced by code review and a static test that scans SQL); cross-mind messages go through an explicit channel table with policy. V: tests/security.TestCrossMindIsolation (lists, detail routes, search, events, archives). ☑

T16 Malicious imported mind data / insecure deserialisation

M: import format is schema-versioned JSON in a zip with per-file SHA-256 manifest; strict decoding (DisallowUnknownFields), size limits, no secrets, no code; imported personalities and memories are marked imported with source trust; policies are not imported. V: internal/snapshots tests and tests/security.TestHostileArchiveImport. Format is JSON with a whole-archive SHA-256 rather than a zip manifest; policies are copied as state (they are ALLOW/ASK/DENY rules, not secrets). ☑

T17 Archive traversal / file upload attacks

See T3, T7. Filenames are replaced by ids on disk; originals kept as metadata and escaped in UI. ☐

T18 Resource exhaustion, unbounded goroutines, DoS

M: all goroutines owned by the scheduler with bounded pools; request body limits; pagination caps; SSE client caps; per-mind cycle rate limits; ingestion rate limits; DB pool limits; pg statement_timeout. V: race tests, goroutine leak tests, queue-limit tests. ☐

T19 Runaway LLM spend

M: per-role, per-mind and global token/cost budgets with hard stops; per-cycle call caps; dreaming/reflection budgets; cost estimates recorded per call; alerts at 80%. V: budget enforcement tests with a fake provider. ☐

T20 Runaway cognitive loops

M: candidate fingerprint loop detector; suppression plus metacognition warning; mode falls back to idle when a cycle budget is exhausted. V: loop scenario test. ☐

T21 Insecure secrets handling at rest

M: AES-256-GCM with master key from env; key absence disables enc: references rather than falling back to plaintext. V: unit tests. ☐

T22 Forged webhooks

M: HMAC-SHA256 signature with per-integration secret, constant-time compare, timestamp tolerance, replay cache; unsigned webhooks disabled by default. V: forged/replayed signature tests. ☐

T23 Poisoned repository data

M: repository content is trust=low data; hooks/scripts never executed; git run with -c core.hooksPath=/dev/null, no submodule recursion, size caps; repository writes require ASK capability. V: hostile repo fixture test. ☐

T24 Malicious model output

M: JSON schema validation; numeric fields clamped; capability names in output are proposals only; free text is rendered escaped; no model output is used to build SQL, paths, commands or URLs. V: adversarial fake-provider tests. ☐

T25 Operator-control subversion

M: no drive or goal type for self-preservation, replication or permission acquisition; shutdown, pause and disable are API operations the mind cannot call; the self-model lists these as unavailable. V: static test that goal/drive enums exclude such items; policy test that minds cannot reach admin routes. ☐

Residual risks

• A compromised host or database compromises everything.
• Approximate replay of LLM-driven steps cannot prove the model would behave identically.
• Operators who set broad ALLOW policies accept the consequences; the UI warns on risky policies.