Cafiyn Pulse
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6 min readUpdated 2026-08-31Issue 1

Row-level security is on by default now. That is not the same as being protected.

Lovable fixed the default. The gap that actually leaks data was never the default, it was the policy, and no platform can write that for you.

ByKarthik KumarCafiyn Innovations
At a glance
Most common leak
Misconfigured RLS in Supabase-backed applications
Supabase default
Tables created via SQL have RLS off unless you enable it
Lovable now
Enables RLS by default, lints for it after migrations, scans schema changes
Still on you
Writing a policy that restricts who reads and writes each row
Test time
About two minutes with a second account

The part that changed, honestly

Lovable has closed the gap that generated most of the early coverage. It enables row-level security by default, runs a linter that catches missing RLS after a database migration, and runs automated security checks against database configuration when your schema changes, flagging what it finds. Its agent will also produce an assessment covering auth flows, schema, RLS policies, and general posture.

That is a meaningful amount of safety net, and it is worth saying plainly rather than recycling an older story about defaults that have since been fixed. If your mental model of building on Lovable is from a year ago, update it.

Why the default was never the whole problem

Row-level security is a switch and a policy. The switch decides whether Postgres consults a policy at all. The policy decides who can see which rows. Platform tooling can turn the switch on for you and can tell you when it is off. It cannot know that a support agent should see tickets for their assigned accounts and nobody else's, because that is a fact about your business, not about your schema.

So RLS enabled with a permissive policy passes every automated check and leaks exactly as much data as RLS disabled. The linter is satisfied, the scan is green, and the table is still readable by anyone holding an API key. This is the failure mode that survives good defaults, which is why it is the one worth your attention.

Supabase's own documentation makes the underlying point: tables created through SQL do not have RLS enabled unless you enable it, and skipping that step is a documented cause of data leaks. Anywhere your schema is created outside the tool's happy path, a migration you wrote by hand, a table added directly in the dashboard, the defaults you are relying on may simply not have applied.

The test that settles it

There is a version of this check that takes two minutes and does not require reading any policies. Create a second account. Sign in as that user. Try to read a row that belongs to the first user.

If it comes back, every row in that table is available to anyone who can authenticate, and in some configurations to anyone holding your public API key at all. If it does not, that table is doing what you think it is doing. Repeat for each table holding data that belongs to a specific user.

This works because it tests the thing you actually care about, which is behaviour, rather than the thing that is easy to check, which is configuration. It is also the same test that catches broken object-level authorisation in hand-written code, so it is worth doing whether or not a generator was involved.

What the funding round has to do with it

Lovable raised $400M at a $13.3B valuation this month. The reason that matters to someone building on it is not validation, it is roadmap: a company at that scale will keep improving the generated defaults, and the gap between "what the platform handles" and "what you handle" will keep moving.

That is good, and it creates a specific obligation. If your security posture depends on platform defaults, you need to know which ones, because they are being changed by someone whose release notes you do not read. The properties you own explicitly, in policies you wrote and tests you run, are the ones that do not move underneath you.

What to do

  1. 1Create a second account and try to read the first account's rows. Do this for every table containing user-owned data.
  2. 2List the tables in your project and confirm each one has RLS enabled and at least one policy. Enabled with no meaningful policy is the case that passes checks and still leaks.
  3. 3Check any table you created outside the tool: hand-written migrations and dashboard-created tables may not have picked up the default.
  4. 4Write down which security properties you are relying on the platform for. Those are the ones to re-verify after a platform update.
  5. 5Add the second-account read test to whatever you run before a release, so it is a check rather than a memory.

Common questions

Is Lovable safe to use for a production app?

It ships meaningful safeguards: RLS on by default, a linter that catches missing RLS after migrations, and automated checks on schema changes. What it cannot do is write the policy that says who may read which row, because that is specific to your product. Treat the platform as covering the switch and yourself as owning the policy.

If RLS is enabled, is my data protected?

Not necessarily. RLS enabled with a permissive policy behaves much like RLS disabled while passing automated checks. The protection comes from the policy restricting rows to their owner, not from the feature being switched on.

What is the fastest way to check?

Sign in as a second user and attempt to read the first user's rows. If the data comes back, the table is exposed. It takes about two minutes and tests behaviour rather than configuration.

Does this only affect AI-generated apps?

No. Supabase documents that tables created via SQL do not have RLS enabled by default, so a hand-written migration carries the same risk. Broken object-level authorisation is one of the most common web vulnerabilities generally, with or without a code generator.

Sources

Read against the primary documentation rather than secondary coverage. Where a figure comes from a provider's own docs, it is quoted as published on 2026-08-31.

Related

Lovable launch checklist →Grade your access control and 9 other categories →Lovable vs Bolt.new →

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