Why Our AI Desktop Assistant Never Stores Model API Keys on Your Computer
Originally published on cernalo.com. Provider keys stay on the server. The desktop app sends a session and the context you choose, and the service checks the plan before it calls a model. I build Cernalo. This post explains one architectural decision and its costs. It is meant to help you evaluate any desktop AI tool, not just ours. Before I wrote any product code for Cernalo, I spent time reading how open-source desktop AI assistants are put together. Many of them share a pattern that makes sen
🎯 Vulnerability: Remote Code Execution (RCE)
💡 Defense Fix: Avoid executing shell commands via system(). Use parameterized APIs and strict input sanitization.