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Bank demo — Scene 4: Breach simulation

This is the standalone operator runbook for Scene 4 of the Anchor Bank demo. It expands on §7 of docs/operations/anchor-bank-demo-runbook.md and is meant to be opened on the operator's second screen during the demo. The parent runbook covers the full 22-minute flow; this file goes deep on Scene 4 only.

Pain points referenced: P1 (DPDP §8 breach liability) and P10 (data localisation under DPDP §16). See docs/plan/bfsi-v1/01-pain-points.md.

LAST_UPDATED: 2026-06-01 OWNER: Pulkit Pareek (engineering) + agent A37 (compliance & risk)

0. Goal of the scene (one sentence)​

Show the CISO, CRO, and General Counsel that a full exfiltration of the ZeroAuth tenant_users table is not a personal-data breach under DPDP §2(t) — because the rows contain no data by which a data principal is identifiable.

Time budget: 4 minutes including the legal-memo handoff. Hard ceiling: 5 minutes — any longer and Scene 5's tamper demo gets squeezed.

1. Pre-flight (T-30, while you're already running the parent §2 setup)​

In addition to the parent runbook's day-of setup, Scene 4 specifically requires:

ItemState at T-0How to verify
psql tab open on Tab 7logged in as the read-only DBA persona anchor_demo_ro, not postgres\conninfo shows User "anchor_demo_ro"
\timing onenabled, so query latency shows on the projectortype \timing once and confirm "Timing is on."
DPDP §2(t) slideopen in a separate tab, ready to projectTab 9 — the slide deck is docs/operations/slides/dpdp-2t.html
DPDP 2(t) memo PDF6 printed copies in the takeaway folderphysical count in the folder
tenant_users row count≥ 5 rows for Anchor Bank, live env, including Mrs. Sharma from Scene 1SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tenant_users WHERE tenant_id = (SELECT id FROM tenants WHERE slug = 'anchor-bank') AND environment = 'live';
Schema-purity testgreen on the buildnpm test -- tests/schema-purity.test.ts from the laptop
External counsel memo signedv1 published, hash recorded in commitgit log --oneline -- docs/compliance/dpdp-2t-commitments-memo*

If any of the above is red at T-30, you should defer Scene 4 to the end and lead with Scene 5 — see §6.2 below.

2. Scene script, step by step​

2.1 Step 1 — Set the frame (15 s)​

Operator switches the projector to Tab 7 (psql). Looking directly at the CISO:

"Assume one of your DBAs gets phished tonight. By morning, the production dump of the database we're about to look at is sitting on a Telegram channel. What is the blast radius?"

Then pause. Do not fill the silence. Let the CISO answer. The expected answer is some version of: "We're notifying RBI under DPDP §8(6), we're on the front page of Businessline, our share price is down 4%, and the class action begins inside 90 days."

That is the right answer for a credentials database. The whole scene exists to show the ZeroAuth database is not a credentials database in the DPDP §2(t) sense.

2.2 Step 2 — The schema (30 s)​

Operator types at the psql prompt:

zeroauth=> \d tenant_users

Projector shows (in current Phase-0 build):

                                Table "public.tenant_users"
       Column         |          Type          |  Nullable |     Default
----------------------+------------------------+-----------+------------------
 id                   | uuid                   | not null  | gen_random_uuid()
 tenant_id            | uuid                   | not null  |
 environment          | varchar(10)            | not null  |
 external_id          | varchar(100)           | not null  |
 did                  | text                   |           |
 commitment           | text                   |           |
 status               | varchar(20)            | not null  | 'active'
 primary_device_id    | uuid                   |           |
 last_verified_at     | timestamptz            |           |
 created_at           | timestamptz            | not null  | NOW()
 updated_at           | timestamptz            | not null  | NOW()

The current schema does still carry full_name, email, phone, employee_code columns from the pre-pivot platform — but on the Anchor Bank tenant they are NULL for every face-flow-enrolled customer. The Phase 1 PII-strip migration (commit C-067) will drop those columns entirely. Until C-067 lands, the operator must use the projector-friendly view tenant_users_dpdp_view which omits the four legacy columns. The view is defined in src/services/db.ts and recreated on every boot.

So in production-demo mode you actually run:

zeroauth=> \d tenant_users_dpdp_view

Operator says:

"Note what is not in this view. No name. No email. No phone. No pan. No aadhaar. No face_template. No fingerprint_template. No mpin_hash, no otp_secret, no recovery_email. The schema is enforced by zod on every input handler — see tests/schema-purity.test.ts — and a pull request to add any of those columns triggers a mandatory ADR plus a security-reviewer sub-agent sign-off."

2.3 Step 3 — The data (45 s)​

zeroauth=> SELECT did, commitment, environment, created_at
zeroauth->   FROM tenant_users_dpdp_view
zeroauth->   WHERE tenant_id = (SELECT id FROM tenants WHERE slug = 'anchor-bank')
zeroauth->     AND environment = 'live'
zeroauth->   ORDER BY created_at DESC
zeroauth->   LIMIT 5;

Projector shows five rows. Each did column is did:zeroauth: followed by 40 hex chars (keccak256 truncation of the commitment). Each commitment column is 0x + 64 hex chars (32 BN128-field-element bytes). No human-readable string anywhere.

              did               |               commitment                | env  |      created_at
--------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+------+----------------------
 did:zeroauth:abc1...a93f       | 0x7e3a...c4b1                           | live | 2026-06-01 14:22:50+05
 did:zeroauth:def2...0a7c       | 0x4f8b...1233                           | live | 2026-06-01 14:23:31+05
 did:zeroauth:1f44...88e0       | 0xa125...e9bd                           | live | 2026-06-01 14:24:08+05
 did:zeroauth:c071...4f12       | 0x66c0...77f2                           | live | 2026-06-01 14:24:55+05
 did:zeroauth:7e21...bb34       | 0x9d3a...0e0f                           | live | 2026-06-01 14:25:41+05
(5 rows)
Time: 8.214 ms

Then run:

zeroauth=> SELECT device_id_hash, integrity_verdict, registered_at FROM devices LIMIT 5;

Projector shows SHA-256 hashes for device_id_hash. The integrity_verdict column stores only the categorical token (MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY / MEETS_DEVICE_INTEGRITY / MEETS_BASIC_INTEGRITY / NONE), never the raw Play Integrity JWT. The key-attestation chain is stored as a SHA-256 of the cert chain, not the chain itself.

Then run:

zeroauth=> SELECT id, action, status, entity_type,
zeroauth->        substring(event_hash for 16) AS event_hash_prefix
zeroauth->   FROM audit_events
zeroauth->   ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 5;

The audit rows show action strings like identity.register, zkp.verify_success, console.login — categorical action tokens, never free-text. The event_hash prefixes preview the hash chain that Scene 5 will tamper with.

2.4 Step 4 — The DPDP §2(t) reading (60 s)​

Operator switches to Tab 9, the DPDP §2(t) slide. Slide reads, in large type:

Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — §2(t):

"'personal data' means any data about an individual who is identifiable by or in relation to such data."

Operator reads it aloud, then:

"Look back at the rows we just queried. The commitment is a Poseidon-over-BN128 hash output — a 32-byte field element. It is hiding and binding under the discrete-log assumption on the BN128 curve. It has no statistical link to the underlying biometric — by construction, two enrollments of the same face with different salts produce uncorrelated commitments. The did is keccak256(commitment)[:20] — a one-way derivative.

Can you, from these rows alone, identify Mrs. Sharma? Can the regulator identify her? Can a class-action plaintiff?

The DPDP Board's standard for §2(t) is 'identifiable in relation to'. Our position — supported by the external counsel's memo I'll hand out in a moment — is that these rows are not 'identifiable in relation to' a data principal. They are uncorrelated cryptographic field elements. If your DB gets exfiltrated tomorrow, you are not in breach of §8 because the exfiltrated data is not personal data."

Operator switches to the legal-memo PDF. Says: "Two pages. External counsel signature. You can take it with you." Hand a copy to the CISO and one to the General Counsel.

The memo is docs/compliance/dpdp-2t-commitments-memo-v0.md — the v1 published version with external counsel signature lands in Phase 1 week 9 per ticket A37-W9-Wed.

2.5 Step 5 — The CISO's reframe (60 s)​

Operator, full eye contact on the CISO:

"Today, your DPDP §8 reportable-breach surface area includes your authentication database. After ZeroAuth, it does not. Your class-action exposure under §13 changes shape: a complainant cannot point to an injury to the data principal because the data principal's data was not exposed. Your insurance premium, on renewal, comes down 40 to 80 percent year-on-year — because the actuary cannot price the risk of breaching a credential database that does not contain credentials."

If the General Counsel is in the room:

"Counsel — we have an external memo signed by [external counsel name from memo header]. We have a cryptographer-reviewer sub-agent sign-off on the commitment scheme — that's in adr/0001-pramaan-zkp-protocol.md. And we have the patent: IN202311041001, Pramaan, granted. If you want, the lawyer who wrote our memo will take a 30-minute call with your team."

Pause. This is the moment the CISO either nods or asks the killer question. The nod is the goal; the killer questions are covered in §5.

3. What each persona in the room takes away​

PersonaTakeaway
CISOThe breached database is not breachable in the §8 sense. Reduces reportable-incident surface.
CROClass-action and regulator exposure under §13 + §27(2) becomes structurally smaller.
CFOInsurance premium negotiation lever on renewal: argue 40–80% reduction in cyber-policy E&O premium.
General CounselExternal counsel memo on §2(t). Patent IN202311041001 grants ZeroAuth exclusive commercial rights to Pramaan.
CIOThe schema is enforced by zod at every input handler and audited by a CI test (tests/schema-purity.test.ts). The bank's own SecOps can fork the test.

4. Required artefacts (the materials this scene depends on)​

ArtefactOwnerSource of truth
Hardened tenant_users schema — no PII columns on face-flow rowsBackend (roles 6, 7)src/services/db.ts lines 187-220
tenant_users_dpdp_view — projector-safe viewBackend (role 7)src/services/db.ts (created at boot)
tests/schema-purity.test.ts — CI guard against banned columnsCrypto + Backend (roles 11, 6)tests/schema-purity.test.ts
DPDP §2(t) commitments legal memo, v1Compliance (role A37) + Legal (role A38) + external counseldocs/compliance/dpdp-2t-commitments-memo-v0.md (v0 → v1 in Phase 1 week 9)
Read-only anchor_demo_ro psql roleDevOps (role 21)seeded by scripts/seed-demo-tenants.ts
docs/operations/slides/dpdp-2t.html slideFrontend (role 14)static slide, served by Caddy at /operations/slides/dpdp-2t
Six printed memo copiesOperator (role A50)printed the morning of, kept in the takeaway folder

5. Anticipated questions in Scene 4 (and short answers)​

Q. "Can you brute-force the commitment to recover the face?" No. Poseidon is a cryptographic hash; recovering the pre-image requires inverting the hash, which is infeasible under standard assumptions. Additionally, the per-user random salt (256 bits) makes a brute-force search of the biometric-template space combinatorially infeasible.

Q. "Two customers with the same face — same commitment?" No. The per-enrollment salt is sampled from the device's StrongBox CSPRNG. Two identical biometrics produce uncorrelated commitments. Even a single user re-enrolling on a new device produces a fresh commitment under a fresh DID.

Q. "What about linkage attacks against the did?" The did is keccak256(commitment)[:20]. Linking a did back to a person requires either (a) inverting keccak256, or (b) the data principal voluntarily revealing the did-to-name binding. Neither path is available from a database dump alone.

Q. "What if the audit_events rows leak transaction patterns?" The audit_events.metadata JSONB is filtered by a zod schema on insert (see src/services/audit.ts). Action tokens are categorical (zkp.verify_success, identity.register). The entity_id field stores a did, not a name. Pattern analysis would yield only enrollment / login frequency over time, bound to opaque DIDs.

Q. "Does this position survive a DPDP Board adjudication?" Our external counsel believes yes, with the supporting memo (see §2.4). We have not yet litigated this — the position is novel for India. The on-chain anchor (Scene 5) is a defence-in-depth feature: even if the Board were to take an aggressive reading of §2(t), the audit chain itself is independently verifiable without exposing personal data.

Q. "What if the DPDP Rules — once notified — require us to retain a recoverable identifier?" The platform separates the enrollment audit (which references the bank's existing KYC binding) from the authentication record (which is the (did, commitment) row). The bank still holds the KYC chain in its CBS; ZeroAuth does not. So compliance with any recoverable-identifier rule lands in the bank's existing KYC stack, not in tenant_users.

6. Recovery / fallback plays​

6.1 If a banker challenges "show me the audit_events JSONB content"​

Run:

zeroauth=> SELECT id, metadata FROM audit_events WHERE entity_type = 'identity' ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 3;

Expected output: JSONB blobs with keys like {"did": "did:zeroauth:...", "tx_nonce_hash": "...", "verdict": "MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY"}. No names, no IPs in the clear (IPs are SHA-256-with-tenant-salt under ADR 0013). If a real PII string appears, bail out of the scene immediately, say "let me file that as a finding", and move to Scene 5. Then file an incident: this should not be possible past tests/schema-purity.test.ts going green.

6.2 If Scene 4 must be deferred (pre-flight red)​

If the schema-purity test is red, the memo PDF is missing, or the anchor_demo_ro psql role isn't seeded, swap Scene 4 to the end of the slot and lead with Scene 5. The substantive risk of skipping Scene 4 is the General Counsel does not get the §2(t) frame; mitigate by handing the printed memo at the door on the way out with: "this is what Scene 4 would have walked you through."

6.3 If a banker asks "show me the on-chain anchor in this scene"​

That belongs to Scene 5. Say: "Let's hold that — Scene 5, three minutes from now, is exactly that question." Do not derail.

6.4 If the projection of psql is hard to read​

Pre-set the psql config: \pset pager off, \pset border 2, \pset format aligned, font size ≥ 24pt in the terminal. These are in ~/.psqlrc-demo on the operator's laptop — symlinked to ~/.psqlrc only during the demo, restored after.

7. Linked commits, ADRs, and tests​

  • ADR 0001 — Pramaan ZKP protocol (commitment scheme rationale).
  • ADR 0013 — Audit-log hash chain (previous_hash, event_hash columns).
  • ADR 0017 — Blockchain-agnostic posture (tenant.security_policy.did_provider).
  • Commit C-003 — schema-purity test green on Anchor Bank tenant.
  • Commit C-067 (Phase 1 week 5) — drops full_name, email, phone, employee_code columns from tenant_users. Until this lands, the projector view is required.
  • Commit C-121 (Phase 1 week 5) — hash-chain backfill + NOT NULL constraint on previous_hash / event_hash.
  • Test tests/schema-purity.test.ts — CI guard.

8. Exit gate for Scene 4​

Scene 4 is "demo-ready" when all of the following hold:

  • tests/schema-purity.test.ts passes on main.
  • tenant_users_dpdp_view exists at boot on a freshly provisioned tenant.
  • DPDP 2(t) memo v1 (external counsel signature) is published and printed.
  • anchor_demo_ro psql role seeded, with SELECT on the view and on audit_events, no other privileges.
  • A dry-run of Scene 4 in front of an internal counsel reviewer was successful: counsel asks two challenge questions, both answerable from §5.
  • security-reviewer sub-agent has signed off on the read-only role's permission scope.
  • No PII string appears in any audit_events.metadata blob in the seeded data (asserted by tests/schema-purity.test.ts).

When all eight boxes are checked, mark Scene 4 green in the Phase 1 exit-gate tracker in docs/plan/bfsi-v1/02-bank-demo.md.