Enterprise Security Checklist for AI-Generated Apps
AI accelerates scaffolding, but security must not be autogenerated on faith. Whether you rely on a fullstack builder AI, a webhook builder AI, or a passwordless auth generator, use this opinionated checklist to harden auth, RBAC, and payments before shipping.
Identity and authentication
- Prefer passkeys or magic links; if using a passwordless auth generator, enforce device binding, phishing-resistant flows, and step-up MFA for risky scopes.
- Validate OAuth/OIDC: require PKCE, rotate client secrets, and use short-lived tokens with refresh rotation and reuse detection.
- Set JWT exp ≤ 15 minutes; include aud, iss, and nonce claims; sign with asymmetric keys stored in an HSM or cloud KMS.
- Harden sessions: SameSite=Lax or Strict, HttpOnly, Secure; bind sessions to IP/UA with tolerance for mobile shifts.
- Rate limit login, token, and verification endpoints; add bot scoring and CAPTCHA only on anomaly.
Authorization and RBAC
- Model roles, then express policies as ABAC: subject.role + resource.owner + action + context.risk.
- Store permissions centrally; version policies; require change tickets and code review for any grant widening.
- Enforce least privilege in generated services; disallow "admin" fallbacks in the fullstack builder AI templates.
- Add deny-by-default; test with negative cases and snapshot policy decisions in CI.
Webhooks and integrations
- Require signature verification with rotating secrets or asymmetric keys; apply timestamp tolerance and replay prevention with nonce storage.
- Enforce idempotency keys on handlers; persist dedupe windows per endpoint.
- Egress allowlist and TLS pinning for outgoing calls your webhook builder AI produces.
- Store raw payloads for forensics; redact PII before logs; map data lineage to your registry.
Payments and PII
- Never handle PAN directly; use PSP tokenization and vaults; keep card data out of logs, analytics, and prompts.
- Segregate PCI scope; isolate keys; require service-to-service mTLS for charging and refunds.
- Implement two-person review for refunds, with velocity caps and anomaly alerts.
- Maintain an append-only ledger; reconcile daily; verify idempotency across provider outages.
Supply chain and AI scaffolding
- Pin dependencies; generate an SBOM; auto-open PRs for critical CVEs; ban risky transitive packages.
- Force the generator to emit IaC with security groups, least-privileged IAM, and secret references, never inline secrets.
- Scan prompts and generated code for secrets and hardcoded tokens before merge.
Observability and response
- Emit structured audit logs for auth, policy decisions, and money movement; retain ≥ 365 days.
- Instrument threat rules: impossible travel, excessive declines, webhook replay spikes.
- Ship playbooks and kill switches; add dry-run gates for policy changes and pricing.
Validation quick start
- Auth: run OIDC conformance tests; fuzz JWT claims; verify session cookie flags in staging.
- RBAC: unit-test denies; snapshot policy; attempt escalation via API and UI.
- Payments: simulate failures; test idempotent retries and refund abuse.
- Webhooks: replay payloads; rotate secrets; confirm 401/403 on failure.
