Security

If you’ve found a security problem in Mahfouz, please tell us privately first, so we can fix it before it’s public. Don’t open a GitHub issue or send feedback from the app for it: both are public.

Report a vulnerability

Email security@influpert.com with:

• what the problem is, and what someone could do with it;
• the steps to reproduce it, or a proof of concept;
• the Mahfouz version and operating system, or the address on web.mahfouz.app;
• whether, and how, you’d like to be credited.

We’ll confirm we’ve received your report within 3 business days, and keep you updated until it’s fixed. Please give us 90 days to ship a fix before you share details, unless we agree on another date together. Once the fix is out, we’ll credit you in the changelog if you’d like.

We don’t offer a bug bounty.

In scope

• The Mahfouz desktop app, in its latest release.
• The web app at web.mahfouz.app and Mahfouz’s server: api.mahfouz.app, which answers the web app’s requests and the desktop app’s publishing and feedback and hosts the MCP connector, and platform.mahfouz.app, which handles sign-in and approving agents.
• Published pages at p.mahfouz.app.
• This website, mahfouz.app, and the official mahfouz plugin registry.

Only the latest release gets security fixes, so check the problem is still there in it.

Out of scope

• Plugins and registries made by other people. Report those to their authors.
• Problems in GitHub, Cloudflare, an AI provider or another service Mahfouz connects to. Report those to that service.
• Denial-of-service and load testing, spam, and social engineering of us or our users.
• Reports from automated scanners, or about missing headers or settings, without a way to use them.
• Anything that needs an already compromised device or account.

Testing safely

While you look for a problem, please:

• test only against your own vaults, accounts and published pages;
• not read, change or delete anyone else’s data, and stop as soon as you reach any;
• not degrade Mahfouz’s web app or server for other people.

If you act in good faith and follow this policy, we won’t take legal action against you or ask anyone else to, and we’ll treat your research as authorized.

How Mahfouz protects you

• Your notes stay local. A vault is a folder on your computer. Nothing leaves it unless you set up sync, publishing, an AI provider, an agent or a plugin. See Privacy.
• Your keys are in the keychain. AI API keys and your GitHub sign-in are kept in the macOS keychain, not in your vault or in a settings file.
• Encrypted vaults. A vault can be encrypted with git-crypt, so its notes are unreadable on GitHub.
• Agents are off until you allow them. On the desktop, external agents connect only from your own computer, reach only the vaults you tick, and their edits can wait for your approval. See External agents.
• You approve each plugin. A plugin is installed, and updated, only when you approve it, its files are checked against their recorded checksums, and it can reach only the web addresses it lists. A plugin still runs inside the app with access to your vaults, so install only plugins you trust. Installed plugins share the app’s page, so one plugin can use another’s features. A plugin’s helper program, such as the one Slidev presentations run, runs with your user account’s access to your files: the app checks that the vault it’s handed is one you opened, but not what the helper does after that. Since 0.13.0
• The desktop app opens only the folders you chose. File and git operations reach only the vaults you’ve opened in the app, and so does the vault a plugin’s helper program is handed. The search index (mahfouz.db) is a cache that the app’s own page can rewrite, so it never decides which folders the app may open. If the sidebar or search ever looks wrong, Rebuild from vault in Vault Settings rebuilds it from your notes. Since 0.13.0
• Sign-ins on the web are protected. You sign in at platform.mahfouz.app. Your GitHub tokens stay on the server, encrypted, and never reach the browser. Your session cookies can’t be read by scripts or sent from other sites, and they end 30 days after you sign in. Requests to api.mahfouz.app that change something must come from web.mahfouz.app itself.
• Feedback is filed by Mahfouz’s server. The bot account that files feedback issues keeps its token on the server; the app carries none. Your GitHub sign-in goes along only when you choose to include your login, and only so the server can check it with GitHub.
• Published pages are kept apart. Pages live on their own domain, p.mahfouz.app, with a strict content security policy, so a page can’t reach your Mahfouz session.
• Strict web settings. web.mahfouz.app uses HTTPS only, a content security policy that lets it talk only to itself and api.mahfouz.app, and refuses to be framed by other sites.