ARES is pre-1.0 software. We provide security fixes for the latest minor release only.

Do NOT open a public GitHub issue for security vulnerabilities.

Instead, please report vulnerabilities to security@timwood0x10.dev with:

1. A description of the vulnerability
2. Steps to reproduce
3. Potential impact
4. Suggested fix (if any)

• Acknowledgment: within 48 hours
• Initial assessment: within 7 days
• Fix or mitigation: within 30 days for high-severity issues

We appreciate responsible disclosure and will credit reporters in the CHANGELOG (unless anonymity is preferred).

The config loader (internal/ares_config/config.go) restricts config file paths to an allowed directory via SetAllowedConfigDir(). Do not disable this check in production.

ARES uses PostgreSQL for persistence. Ensure:

• Database credentials are stored in environment variables or secret managers, never in committed config files
• The database user has minimal required privileges
• Production databases use TLS connections

LLM provider API keys (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) are read from environment variables. Never hardcode API keys in source files or committed YAML configurations.

MCP tools execute arbitrary commands. Only enable MCP servers from trusted sources. The internal/ares_security package provides sandboxing utilities — use them.

The quant module (internal/ares_quant/) can execute real market operations if connected to live trading APIs. Never enable live trading credentials in development or testing environments.