Security Guideline Document: Video Search macOS Desktop Application

Version: 1.0
Date: October 26, 2023


1. Introduction

This document outlines security protocols for the Video Search macOS application—a local video content retrieval tool leveraging OCR for offline text recognition. Primary security objectives:

  • Ensure user data privacy (videos, extracted text).
  • Prevent unauthorized access or code execution.
  • Mitigate risks from malicious file processing.
  • Comply with Apple’s macOS security standards.

2. Security Architecture

Core Components:

  • Frontend: SwiftUI 5.0 (macOS 13.0+)
  • OCR Engine: Tesseract 5.3.0 with custom-trained LSTM models for Chinese/English.
  • Indexing Database: SQLite 3.42.0 (encrypted via SQLCipher 4.5.1).
  • Media Processing: FFmpeg 6.0 (sandboxed).

Threat Model:

  • Data Leakage: Unauthorized access to video/text databases.
  • File-Based Attacks: Malicious video files triggering buffer overflows.
  • Privilege Escalation: Exploiting macOS permissions.

3. Data Security Controls

3.1. Data-at-Rest Encryption

  • All extracted text and metadata stored in an SQLite database encrypted with AES-256 (SQLCipher).
  • Key management via macOS Keychain Services (user-specific keys).
  • Temporary files wiped using srm secure deletion after processing.

3.2. Data Isolation

  • Video files processed in a macOS App Sandbox with strict entitlements:
    <key>com.apple.security.app-sandbox</key>  
    <true/>  
    <key>com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-only</key>  
    <true/>  
  • OCR output confined to ~/Library/Application Support/VideoSearch/ (user-accessible only).

4. Secure Development Practices

4.1. Code Security

  • Static Analysis: Integrate SwiftLint 0.54.0 with custom rules for input validation (e.g., regex-based file path sanitization).
  • Dependency Scanning: Use OWASP Dependency-Check 8.2.1 to audit FFmpeg/Tesseract dependencies weekly.
  • Memory Safety: Enforce fstrict-overflow and Address Sanitizer (ASan) in Xcode 15.0 builds.

4.2. File Processing Safeguards

  • Video input validation:
    • Limit file types to .mp4, .mov, .mkv via UTType checks.
    • Scan for malformed headers using FFmpeg’s avformat_open_input() with error bounds.
  • OCR input sanitization: Reject non-text frames >10MB to prevent heap exhaustion.

5. Access Control & Authentication

  • User Permissions:
    • Explicit user consent via macOS file-access dialogs for video directory selection.
    • Least-privilege principle: No com.apple.security.files.all entitlement.
  • Admin Actions: Require biometric (Touch ID) or password re-authentication for:
    • Database export.
    • Index deletion.

6. Vulnerability Management

6.1. Patching Strategy

  • Critical Updates: Patch within 72 hours for CVSS ≥7.0 (e.g., FFmpeg zero-days).
  • Automated Scans:
    • Daily CVE monitoring via trivy 0.45.0 for containers (if Dockerized testing used).
    • Monthly penetration tests using Burp Suite (fuzzing file uploads).

6.2. Incident Response

  • Log security events (e.g., failed DB decryption) to os_log with severity levels.
  • Auto-alert via macOS Notification Center for >5 consecutive auth failures.

7. Cryptography Standards

  • Key Derivation: PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 (100,000 iterations) for SQLCipher keys.
  • OCR Data Integrity: SHA-256 hashes of extracted text stored with timestamps.
  • No Custom Crypto: Rely on Apple’s CryptoKit for checksums.

8. Audit & Compliance

  • Logging: Retain access logs for 30 days (user ID, timestamp, action type) in JSON format.
  • Compliance: Align with:
    • Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines (Section 5.1: Data Collection).
    • GDPR Art. 25 (Data Protection by Design).

9. Future Extensions

  • Zero-Trust Add-ons: Integrate macOS Content Filter Extension for enterprise network traffic inspection (if cloud sync added).
  • Hardware-Backed Security: Support Apple Secure Enclave for key storage.

Approvals:

  • Security Lead: [Name/Title]
  • DevOps: [Name/Title]
  • Compliance Officer: [Name/Title]

Revision History:

  • v1.0 (2023-10-26): Initial release.

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