The following versions of Symbiont are currently supported with security updates:

Upgrade guidance. v1.14.0 contains breaking changes — Composio MCP / SymbiBot integration removed, reasoning-loop policy gate now fail-closed by default, JWT verifier enforces an ES256 / EdDSA / HS256 algorithm allowlist, docker-compose.test.yml requires SYMBIONT_API_TOKEN with no default. See CHANGELOG.md (the v1.14.0 section) for the full upgrade and migration notes, and SECURITY-OPS.md for out-of-band operator actions (e.g. Homebrew PAT rotation).

Last updated: 2026-05-18

We take security vulnerabilities seriously. If you discover a security vulnerability in Symbiont, please report it to us privately.

DO NOT create a public GitHub issue for security vulnerabilities.

Instead, please:

1. Email: Send details to security@thirdkey.ai
2. Subject: Include "SECURITY" in the subject line
3. Content: Include the following information:
   • Description of the vulnerability
   • Steps to reproduce the issue
   • Potential impact
   • Any suggested fixes (if you have them)

• Acknowledgment: We will acknowledge receipt of your report within 48 hours
• Assessment: We will assess the vulnerability and provide an initial response within 5 business days
• Updates: We will keep you informed of our progress throughout the process
• Resolution: We aim to resolve critical vulnerabilities within 30 days

• We follow responsible disclosure practices
• We will work with you to understand and resolve the issue before any public disclosure
• We will credit you for the discovery (unless you prefer to remain anonymous)
• We will coordinate with you on the timing of public disclosure

When using Symbiont in production:

1. Keep Updated: Always use the latest supported version. v1.14.0 fixes several CRITICAL findings — see SECURITY_AUDIT.md.
2. Secrets Management: Use the built-in encrypted secrets store with a strong KDF password; prefer OS keychain or Vault key providers over environment variables. Use *_API_KEY_REF env vars (e.g. OPENROUTER_API_KEY_REF) to point at secret-store entries instead of inlining keys in *_API_KEY.
3. Sandboxing: Use Docker, gVisor, Firecracker, or E2B for untrusted code; never use the native sandbox in production. The native-sandbox Cargo feature fails to compile in release builds (v1.14.0+); runtime construction additionally requires SYMBI_UNSAFE_NATIVE_SANDBOX=1 so accidental use is impossible in a hardened binary.
4. Policy Gate: symbi up / symbi run default to a fail-closed reasoning-loop policy gate (v1.14.0+) — every ToolCall and Delegate action is denied until an explicit ReasoningPolicyGate implementation (e.g. CedarPolicyGate, OpaPolicyGateBridge) is wired in. The dev-only --insecure-allow-all / SYMBI_INSECURE_ALLOW_ALL=1 opt-in prints a loud stderr banner; never use it in production.
5. Tool Verification: Run in strict enforcement mode to ensure only verified MCP tools are executed.
6. API Keys: Enable per-agent API key authentication for all HTTP endpoints; rotate keys regularly. Use the keyid.secret format — v1.14.0 added SYMBI_REJECT_LEGACY_API_KEYS=1 to immediately reject the deprecated O(n) Argon2 scan path used for unprefixed legacy keys.
7. JWT / Webhook Verification: v1.14.0 enforces an algorithm allowlist (ES256 / EdDSA for asymmetric Authorization: Bearer, HS256 for HMAC webhooks). RSA-signed JWTs are refused on every operator-controlled path, which mitigates RUSTSEC-2023-0071 (rsa Marvin Attack via jsonwebtoken). Audience claims are required unconditionally.
8. Rate Limiting: Keep rate limiting enabled to prevent abuse and resource exhaustion.
9. Audit Logging: Enable audit logging in strict mode and monitor for suspicious activity.
10. Network Security: Run Symbiont in a properly secured network environment with TLS. Bind ports to 127.0.0.1 behind a reverse proxy; the bundled docker-compose.test.yml does this by default and refuses to start without SYMBIONT_API_TOKEN (no testtoken123 default; the runtime additionally rejects any token starting with test shorter than 20 chars).
11. Policy Rules: Define explicit allow/deny policies for agent capabilities and tool access. Cedar policies are the recommended path.
12. External Tools: Symbiont does not ship a built-in MCP tool client (the Composio integration was removed in v1.14.0 — see SECURITY_AUDIT.md C3). Bring your own ActionExecutor for external tool dispatch, and never dispatch LLM-supplied tool names against an unbounded backend without a static allowlist + TLS pinning.

Symbiont includes several security features:

• Sandboxed Execution: Tiered isolation (Docker, gVisor, Firecracker, E2B) with resource limits via rlimit and process-group kill on timeout. Firecracker working directory is per-uid /run/symbi/agent_<id> (0700) with a per-uid <temp>/symbi-<uid>/... fallback (v1.14.0+).
• Native Sandbox Hardening: Process-group isolation (setpgid/killpg), CPU/memory/file-size limits, empty-by-default allowed executables, shell warnings. The native-sandbox Cargo feature fails to compile in release builds, and runtime construction requires SYMBI_UNSAFE_NATIVE_SANDBOX=1 regardless of SYMBI_ENV (v1.14.0+).
• Fail-Closed Reasoning Policy Gate: DefaultPolicyGate::new() denies every ToolCall and Delegate action with an explicit reason; production deployments must wire CedarPolicyGate, OpaPolicyGateBridge, or a custom ReasoningPolicyGate. The dev-only permissive constructor is permissive_for_dev_only() (#[doc(hidden)]) and emits tracing::warn! on every action it evaluates (v1.14.0+).
• JWT Algorithm Allowlist: ES256 / EdDSA for asymmetric Authorization: Bearer paths, HS256 for the HMAC webhook-signature path. RS / PS / none algorithms are refused at both the header-inspection guard and the Validation::algorithms allowlist. Audience claims required unconditionally — the SYMBIONT_ALLOW_NO_JWT_AUDIENCE env-var escape hatch was removed in v1.14.0. Mitigates RUSTSEC-2023-0071 (rsa Marvin Attack via jsonwebtoken).
• Tool-Call Argument Validation: LLM-produced tool arguments are validated against the tool's declared JSON Schema before the policy gate runs; schema-violating or non-object arguments are rejected as LoopDecision::Deny (v1.14.0+).
• Secrets Management: AES-256-GCM encrypted file store with Argon2id KDF (OWASP 2024 at-rest parameters: 64 MiB / 3 iters), file locking (fd-lock), mtime-based decryption cache, env/keychain/file/Vault key providers. Secret type emits "value": "[REDACTED]" on Serialize so structured loggers can't leak plaintext (v1.14.0+).
• Per-Agent API Key Authentication: Argon2id-hashed API keys (OWASP interactive: 19 MiB / 2 iters) with file-backed key store. keyid.secret format gives O(1) lookup by key ID; the legacy O(n) scan path emits a loud error! and can be hard-disabled with SYMBI_REJECT_LEGACY_API_KEYS=1 (v1.14.0+).
• Per-IP Rate Limiting: Governor-based rate limiting middleware (configurable, default 100 req/min).
• Tool Verification (SchemaPin): Cryptographic schema verification for MCP tool invocations with configurable enforcement policies (strict/permissive/development/disabled).
• Agent Identity (AgentPin): Domain-anchored ES256 cryptographic identity verification for AI agents.
• Webhook Signature Verification: HMAC-SHA256 (subtle::ConstantTimeEq) and JWT verification with provider presets (GitHub, Stripe, Slack, Mattermost) and constant-time comparison. Replay protection: 5-minute timestamp freshness window with i128-widened delta to defeat i64 overflow attacks at the boundary.
• Trusted Proxy Allowlist: X-Forwarded-For is only honored from CIDRs configured via SYMBI_TRUSTED_PROXIES.
• Invisible-Character Sanitization (symbi-invis-strip): Strips C0/C1 controls, zero-width chars, bidi overrides, variation selectors, the Unicode Tag block, soft hyphen, combining marks, and superscript/subscript forms. detect_injection_patterns NFKC-normalises input (closes fullwidth + math-alphanumeric homoglyph bypasses), adds compact-projection matching (catches post-strip word concatenation), and flags Latin+Cyrillic mixing with a synthetic mixed-script marker (v1.14.0 / invis-strip 0.3.0).
• Human Approval Relay (symbi-approval-relay): Dual-channel human approval relay with Slack signature verification using subtle::ConstantTimeEq and i128-widened timestamp delta.
• AgentSkills Security: Verified skill loading with SchemaPin signatures, content scanning with ClawHavoc defense rules.
• Sensitive Argument Redaction: Schema-driven masking of sensitive tool parameters in logs.
• Audit Logging: Comprehensive logging of security-relevant events with strict/permissive failure modes.
• Policy Engine: Fine-grained access control and security policies with Cedar and DSL-defined rules.
• Model I/O Logging: Encrypted interaction logs with configurable retention.

• Symbiont executes arbitrary code as defined in agent configurations
• The native sandbox provides resource limits but not full isolation — use Docker/gVisor/Firecracker/E2B for untrusted code
• Native sandbox is blocked in production (SYMBIONT_ENV=production); v1.14.0 additionally requires SYMBI_UNSAFE_NATIVE_SANDBOX=1 at runtime and makes the native-sandbox Cargo feature fail to compile in release builds
• Ensure proper network isolation and access controls; bind to 127.0.0.1 behind a reverse proxy, not 0.0.0.0
• Regularly review and audit agent configurations and policy rules
• Monitor system resources and API usage
• Use encryption for data at rest and in transit
• Rotate API keys and secrets periodically — see SECURITY-OPS.md for the operator-side action items (e.g. Homebrew PAT rotation)
• The Microsoft Teams adapter (crates/channel-adapter/src/adapters/teams/auth.rs) still uses RS256 because the Bot Framework protocol requires it; that surface is bounded to MS-signed tokens issued by Azure

We maintain an internal vulnerability management process:

1. Triage: Initial assessment and severity classification
2. Investigation: Technical analysis and impact assessment
3. Remediation: Development and testing of fixes
4. Release: Security patches and coordinated disclosure
5. Post-mortem: Review process improvements

• Critical: Remote code execution, privilege escalation
• High: Information disclosure, authentication bypass
• Medium: Denial of service, local privilege escalation
• Low: Information leakage, minor security issues

We monitor our dependencies for known vulnerabilities:

• cargo-deny: License and vulnerability auditing via deny.toml
• Regular dependency updates with Cargo lockfile pinning
• Automated vulnerability scanning in CI
• Review of dependency security advisories
• Prompt patching of vulnerable dependencies

For security-related questions or concerns:

• Security Email: security@thirdkey.ai
• General Contact: oss@symbiont.dev
• Website: https://symbiont.dev

This security policy is subject to change. Check this document regularly for updates.