Securing Your Firebase Apps: A Deep Dive into Firestore Rules

Building with Firebase is fast, but speed often comes at the cost of security. Many teams launch with permissive Firestore rules, sometimes even allowing read, write—if true—without realizing that these rules are their only line of defense against unauthorized access. The result? Exposed data

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1. 00 What if a single line of code could expose your entire database to the public?
2. What if the feature that made your app go live fast also becomes the reason your company is trending for the wrong reason?
3. That is what happens when that says, if true. you ship with Firebase rules
4. ABUJA Ayodele Aransiola Solution Architect, Gopaddi Securing Your Firebase Apps: A Deep Dive into Firestore Rules 2025
5. ABUJA - Developer Relations - Solutions Architect - Open-source Advocate - Co-founder, RYD Learning (X) - @leomofthings
6. 01 Just Make it Work • Secure • Scalable • S(C)ompliant
7. 02 Rules are not filters. Firebase rules are not your backend logic.
8. Think ‘deny first, permit by intent’ approach.
9. Breaking Bad
10. 03 Apps on prod need more nuances, especially SaaS-based ones: admin, viewers (audit…), and support. Which of these roles should have edit access?
11. Now let’s make sure users can only touch their own stuff.
12. Field Immutability Sometimes users should be able to edit content but not sensitive fields like roles or balances. ABUJA
13. 04 Multi-Tenancy Like a massive apartment complex. Everyone lives in the same building (server) and relies on the same water and electricity (database/infrastructure).
14. ABUJA Ensuring Data Isolation.
15. 05 For collaborative applications, you can’t just block everyone else; You need smart sharing.
16. Access Control List (ACL) Pattern
17. Document Level ACL Pattern
18. Security that’s untested is insecurity in disguise.
19. 06 When Rules cannot handle it, delegate to cloud functions. Example: validating cross-collection data.
20. ABUJA You can’t IMPROVE what you don’t MONITOR.
21. Audit Checklist • Generic > Specific • Manual > Automate • Flat > Modular • Basic > Tested ABUJA
22. Security isn’t a sprint; it’s part of your CI culture.
23. Speed is good, but secure speed is better. Ayodele Aransiola Solution Architect, Gopaddi. ABUJA (X) - @leomofthings