jobtrackingapp/docs/_archive/security-assessments/M015-authorization-replay-report.md

M015 Cross-User Authorization Replay Report

This report covers the follow-up tenant-boundary work after M013 and M014.

Related artifacts:

• docs/security-assessments/M013-adversarial-security-assessment.md
• docs/security-assessments/M014-security-remediation-verification.md
• docs/security-assessments/M015-hostile-fixture-setup.md
• docs/security-assessments/M015-hostile-fixture-setup.json
• docs/security-assessments/M015-s02-probe-results.json

Test Setup

A dedicated hostile-test SQLite database was created from the current EF model because the default development DB was missing core domain tables needed for real authorization probes.

Fixture runtime:

• clean SQLite DB under .tmp/m015-fixture
• API started with Data__Root=/home/pi/development/JobTracker/.tmp/m015-fixture
• registration temporarily enabled for the fixture runtime
• two real local users created through the API:
  • alice.m015@example.com
  • bob.m015@example.com

Alice-owned fixture resources created through the real API:

• company_id = 1
• job_id = 1
• correspondence_id = 1
• attachment_id = 1

All mutating requests used the real cookie + CSRF contract.

Cross-User Probe Summary

Bob targeted Alice’s fixture ids with a real authenticated session.

Defended in this pass

The following probes failed closed with 404 when Bob targeted Alice’s resources:

• GET /api/attachments/1
• GET /api/attachments/download/1
• PATCH /api/attachments/1
• DELETE /api/attachments/1
• GET /api/correspondence/1
• DELETE /api/correspondence/1
• GET /api/jobapplications/1
• PUT /api/jobapplications/1
• PATCH /api/jobapplications/1/followup
• GET /api/jobapplications/1/timeline
• GET /api/jobapplications/1/tailored-cv-draft
• GET /api/jobapplications/1/followup-draft

These routes did not expose or mutate Alice-owned data in this hostile fixture pass.

Confirmed Finding

Cross-user read leak on job history

• Category: Authorization / data exposure
• Endpoint: GET /api/jobapplications/{id}/history
• Risk: Medium

Vulnerability

Before the fix, Bob could request Alice’s job history by raw job id and receive Alice’s JobEvent rows.

Observed pre-fix response:

• GET /api/jobapplications/1/history as Bob
• 200 OK
• payload included Alice-owned event data, including the Created event for Alice’s job

Example exploit input

GET /api/jobapplications/1/history
Cookie: jobtracker_auth=<bob session cookie>

Root cause

Two issues combined:

1. GetHistory(...) queried JobEvents directly by JobApplicationId without verifying that the parent job belonged to the current user.
2. JobEvent had no owner-scoped query filter in Data/JobTrackerContext.cs.

Fix

• GetHistory(...) now checks whether the requested job exists in the current user’s scoped JobApplications query and returns 404 if it does not.
• JobEvent now has an owner-scoped query filter tied to JobApplication.OwnerUserId.
• Added focused regression test:
  • JobTrackerApi.Tests/JobApplicationsAuthorizationTests.cs

Replay after fix

Observed post-fix response:

• GET /api/jobapplications/1/history as Bob
• 404 Not Found

Verdict

Fixed.

Automated Evidence

Focused regression test

dotnet test JobTrackerApi.Tests/JobTrackerApi.Tests.csproj --filter JobApplicationsAuthorizationTests

Observed:

• passed
• verifies GetHistory returns NotFound for another user’s job

Final Assessment

For the prioritized raw-id authorization seams exercised in this milestone:

• confirmed and fixed: GET /api/jobapplications/{id}/history
• no finding in this fixture pass: attachments, correspondence, primary job read/update, follow-up patch, timeline, tailored draft, follow-up draft

Remaining Boundary

This report covers the endpoints actually exercised in the hostile fixture pass. It does not claim that every authorization-sensitive route in the application has been exhaustively proven safe; it closes the high-risk raw-id seams prioritized from the earlier assessment with a real two-user runtime and replay evidence.