Shankar Reddy fb4ce1a243 security: fail closed when CERTCTL_CONFIG_ENCRYPTION_KEY is unset (fixes C-2) ...

EncryptIfKeySet/DecryptIfKeySet in internal/crypto/encryption.go previously
returned plaintext + wasEncrypted=false when the operator had not configured
CERTCTL_CONFIG_ENCRYPTION_KEY. That produced a data-at-rest confidentiality
bypass (CWE-311): sensitive fields on dynamically-configured issuer and
target rows (source='database') were persisted to PostgreSQL without any
encryption, and no caller could distinguish the encrypted from the plaintext
branch at runtime. The only visible signal was a single warning log line
emitted once at startup.

Fail closed instead:

- EncryptIfKeySet / DecryptIfKeySet now return crypto.ErrEncryptionKeyRequired
  (a new exported sentinel, errors.Is-unwrappable) when the key is empty or
  nil, rather than silently emitting plaintext. The (result, wasEncrypted,
  err) tuple signature is preserved for source compatibility; only the
  semantics of the no-key branch changed.

- cmd/server/main.go grows a startup pre-flight check: if no encryption key
  is configured the server lists issuers and targets, counts rows with
  source='database', and refuses to start (os.Exit(1)) if any exist. Operators
  must either configure CERTCTL_CONFIG_ENCRYPTION_KEY or remove the exposed
  rows before the control plane can boot. The warning-only path is retained
  for the clean-slate case (no database rows).

- internal/service/issuer.go's SeedFromEnvVars now guards the encryption call
  with len(s.encryptionKey) > 0 so env-seeded rows (source='env', which are
  reconstructable on every boot from process env) continue to persist as
  plaintext in the 'config' column when no key is configured. Registry load
  already falls through to cfg.Config when EncryptedConfig is nil. GUI/API
  write paths (source='database') remain fail-closed via propagation of
  ErrEncryptionKeyRequired.

- Integration tests that exercise CreateIssuer via the handler layer now
  supply a real 32-byte AES-256 test key so the encrypt path runs instead of
  returning ErrEncryptionKeyRequired. Same pattern in internal/service/
  testutil_test.go for consolidated service-layer tests.

- internal/crypto/encryption_test.go grows regression guards:
  TestEncryptIfKeySet_EmptyKeyFailsClosed (nil_key + empty_key subtests),
  TestDecryptIfKeySet_EmptyKeyFailsClosed (nil_key + empty_key subtests),
  TestEncryptDecryptIfKeySet_RoundTripProducesDifferentCiphertext,
  TestDecryptIfKeySet_RejectsTamperedCiphertext, and
  TestEncryptIfKeySet_PreservesErrEncryptionKeyRequiredSentinel (verifies
  the sentinel unwraps through fmt.Errorf(%w)-style wrapping).

Wire format is unchanged: AES-256-GCM Encrypt/Decrypt/DeriveKey, the
12-byte nonce prefix, the GCM auth tag, the PBKDF2 salt
('certctl-config-encryption-v1'), and the 100,000 iteration count are all
byte-identical. Ciphertexts produced before this change remain decryptable.

Verified:
- go build ./... : clean
- go vet ./...   : clean
- go test -race ./internal/crypto/... ./internal/service/... \
    ./internal/integration/... ./cmd/server/... : pass
- golangci-lint run ./... : 0 issues
- govulncheck ./... : 0 reachable vulnerabilities
- rg 'return plaintext, false, nil' internal/ : no matches
- Coverage: crypto 85.0% (unchanged), service 67.8% (was 67.9%, noise),
  cmd/server 0.0% (unchanged baseline). All above CI thresholds.

See certctl-audit-report.md for the full finding record and resolution log.

2026-04-16 21:10:40 +00:00

..

main_test.go

fix: resolve 8 staticcheck lint errors in test files

2026-04-09 23:27:57 -04:00

main.go

security: fail closed when CERTCTL_CONFIG_ENCRYPTION_KEY is unset (fixes C-2)

2026-04-16 21:10:40 +00:00