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New research has uncovered that publishers of over 100 Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extensions leaked access tokens that could be exploited by bad actors to update the extensions, posing a critical software supply chain risk. "A leaked VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX PAT [personal access token] allows an attacker to directly distribute a malicious extension update across the entire install base," Wiz security researcher Rami McCarthy said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "An attacker who discovered this issue would have been able to directly distribute malware to the cumulative 150,000 install base." The cloud security firm noted in many cases publishers failed to account for the fact that VS Code extensions, while distributed as .vsix files, can be unzipped and inspected, exposing hard-coded secrets embedded into them. In all, Wiz said it found over 550 validated secrets, distributed across more than 500 extensions from hundreds of distinct publishers....

The North Korean threat actors associated with the long-running Contagious Interview campaign have been observed using malicious Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) projects as lures to deliver a backdoor on compromised endpoints. The latest finding demonstrates continued evolution of the new tactic that was first discovered in December 2025, Jamf Threat Labs said. "This activity involved the deployment of a backdoor implant that provides remote code execution capabilities on the victim system," security researcher Thijs Xhaflaire said in a report shared with The Hacker News. First disclosed by OpenSourceMalware last month, the attack essentially involves instructing prospective targets to clone a repository on GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket, and launch the project in VS Code as part of a supposed job assessment. The end goal of these efforts is to abuse VS Code task configuration files to execute malicious payloads staged on Vercel domains, depending on the oper...

As many as 60 malicious npm packages have been discovered in the package registry with malicious functionality to harvest hostnames, IP addresses, DNS servers, and user directories to a Discord-controlled endpoint. The packages, published under three different accounts, come with an install‑time script that's triggered during npm install, Socket security researcher Kirill Boychenko said in a report published last week. The libraries have been collectively downloaded over 3,000 times. "The script targets Windows, macOS, or Linux systems, and includes basic sandbox‑evasion checks, making every infected workstation or continuous‑integration node a potential source of valuable reconnaissance," the software supply chain security firm said . The names of the three accounts, each of which published 20 packages within an 11-day time period, are listed below. The accounts no longer exist on npm - bbbb335656 cdsfdfafd1232436437, and  sdsds656565 The malicious code, per So...

Severe security flaws uncovered in popular Visual Studio Code extensions could enable attackers to compromise local machines as well as build and deployment systems through a developer's integrated development environment (IDE). The vulnerable extensions could be exploited to run arbitrary code on a developer's system remotely, in what could ultimately pave the way for supply chain attacks. Some of the extensions in question are "LaTeX Workshop," "Rainbow Fart," "Open in Default Browser," and "Instant Markdown," all of which have cumulatively racked up about two million installations between them. "Developer machines usually hold significant credentials, allowing them (directly or indirectly) to interact with many parts of the product," researchers from open-source security platform Snyk  said  in a deep-dive published on May 26. "Leaking a developer's private key can allow a malicious stakeholder to clone important...

A new attack vector targeting the Visual Studio Code extensions marketplace could be leveraged to upload rogue extensions masquerading as their legitimate counterparts with the goal of mounting supply chain attacks. The technique "could act as an entry point for an attack on many organizations," Aqua security researcher Ilay Goldman  said  in a report published last week. VS Code extensions, curated via a  marketplace  made available by Microsoft, allow developers to add programming languages, debuggers, and tools to the VS Code source-code editor to augment their workflows.  "All extensions run with the privileges of the user that has opened the VS Code without any sandbox," Goldman said, explaining the potential risks of using VS Code extensions. "This means that the extension can install any program on your computer including ransomwares, wipers, and more." To that end, Aqua found that not only is it possible for a threat actor to impersonate a po...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a supply chain attack targeting a Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension called Ethcode that has been installed a little over 6,000 times. The compromise, per ReversingLabs , occurred via a GitHub pull request that was opened by a user named Airez299 on June 17, 2025. First released by 7finney in 2022, Ethcode is a VS Code extension that's used to deploy and execute solidity smart contracts in Ethereum Virtual Machine ( EVM )-based blockchains. An EVM is a decentralized computation engine that's designed to run smart contracts on the Ethereum network. According to the supply chain security company, the GitHub project received its last non-malicious update on September 6, 2024. That changed last month when Airez299 opened a pull request with the message "Modernize codebase with viem integration and testing framework." The user claimed to have added a new testing framework with Mocha integration and contract testin...

Popular artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) forks such as Cursor, Windsurf, Google Antigravity, and Trae have been found to recommend extensions that are non-existent in the Open VSX registry, potentially opening the door to supply chain risks when bad actors publish malicious packages under those names. The problem, according to Koi , is that these integrated development environments (IDEs) inherit the list of officially recommended extensions from Microsoft's extensions marketplace. These extensions don't exist in Open VSX. The VS Code extension recommendations can take two different forms: file-based, which are displayed as toast notifications when users open a file in specific formats, or software-based, which are suggested when certain programs are already installed on the host. "The problem: these recommended extensions didn't exist on Open VSX," Koi security researcher Oren Yomtov said. "The namespaces were u...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two new extensions on Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) Marketplace that are designed to infect developer machines with stealer malware. The VS Code extensions masquerade as a premium dark theme and an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered coding assistant, but, in actuality, harbor covert functionality to download additional payloads, take screenshots, and siphon data. The captured information is then sent to an attacker-controlled server. "Your code. Your emails. Your Slack DMs. Whatever's on your screen, they're seeing it too," Koi Security's Idan Dardikman said . "And that's just the start. It also steals your WiFi passwords, reads your clipboard, and hijacks your browser sessions." The names of the extensions are below - BigBlack.bitcoin-black (16 installs) - Removed by Microsoft on December 5, 2025  BigBlack.codo-ai (25 installs) - Removed by Microsoft on December 8, 2025 Microsoft's l...

A China-aligned threat actor known as TA415 has been attributed to spear-phishing campaigns targeting the U.S. government, think tanks, and academic organizations utilizing U.S.-China economic-themed lures. "In this activity, the group masqueraded as the current Chair of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as well as the U.S.-China Business Council, to target a range of individuals and organizations predominantly focused on U.S.-China relations, trade, and economic policy," Proofpoint said in an analysis. The enterprise security company said the activity, observed throughout July and August 2025, is likely an effort on part of Chinese state-sponsored threat actors to facilitate intelligence gathering amid ongoing U.S.-China trade talks, adding the hacking group shares overlaps with a threat cluster tracked broadly under the names APT41 and Brass Typhoon (formerly Barium). The findings come days...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a malicious Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension with basic ransomware capabilities that appears to be created with the help of artificial intelligence – in other words, vibe-coded. Secure Annex researcher John Tuckner, who flagged the extension " susvsex ," said it does not attempt to hide its malicious functionality. The extension was uploaded on November 5, 2025, by a user named "suspublisher18" along with the description "Just testing" and the email address "donotsupport@example[.]com." "Automatically zips, uploads, and encrypts files from C:\Users\Public\testing (Windows) or /tmp/testing (macOS) on first launch," reads the description of the extension. As of November 6, Microsoft has stepped in to remove it from the official VS Code Extension Marketplace.  According to details shared by "suspublisher18," the extension is designed to automatically activate itself on any even...

I'm sure you would agree that, in today's digital world, the majority of applications we work on require some type of credentials – to connect to a database with a username/password, to access computer programs via authorized tokens, or API keys to invoke services for authentication. Credentials, or sometimes just referred to as 'Secrets,' are pieces of user or system-level confidential information that ought to be carefully protected and accessible to legitimate users only. We all know how important it is to keep these assets secure to prevent account misuse and breaches.  A reality check: How often do you make proactive efforts to protect these assets? Rarely, I'd say.  Among the worst mistakes a developer can make when it comes to application security is to accidentally commit confidential information publicly on the Internet. Surprisingly, secrets and credentials are accidentally leaked more often than you might expect, and there are intelligent tools that s...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a self-propagating worm that spreads via Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extensions on the Open VSX Registry and the Microsoft Extension Marketplace, underscoring how developers have become a prime target for attacks. The sophisticated threat, codenamed GlassWorm by Koi Security, is the second such supply chain attack to hit the DevOps space within a span of a month after the Shai-Hulud worm that targeted the npm ecosystem in mid-September 2025. What makes the attack stand out is the use of the Solana blockchain for command-and-control (C2), making the infrastructure resilient to takedown efforts. It also uses Google Calendar as a C2 fallback mechanism. Another novel aspect is that the GlassWorm campaign relies on "invisible Unicode characters that make malicious code literally disappear from code editors," Idan Dardikman said in a technical report. "The attacker used Unicode variation selectors – special characters that are...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a malware campaign that's targeting software developers with a new information stealer called Evelyn Stealer by weaponizing the Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension ecosystem. "The malware is designed to exfiltrate sensitive information, including developer credentials and cryptocurrency-related data. Compromised developer environments can also be abused as access points into broader organizational systems," Trend Micro said in an analysis published Monday. The activity is designed to single out organizations with software development teams that rely on VS Code and third-party extensions, along with those with access to production systems, cloud resources, or digital assets, it added. It's worth noting that details of the campaign were first documented by Koi Security last month, when details emerged of three VS Code extensions – BigBlack.bitcoin-black, BigBlack.codo-ai, and BigBlack.mrbigblacktheme...

Threat actors with ties to North Korea have likely become the latest to exploit the recently disclosed critical React2Shell security flaw in React Server Components (RSC) to deliver a previously undocumented remote access trojan dubbed EtherRAT . "EtherRAT leverages Ethereum smart contracts for command-and-control (C2) resolution, deploys five independent Linux persistence mechanisms, and downloads its own Node.js runtime from nodejs.org," Sysdig said in a report published Monday. The cloud security firm said the activity exhibits significant overlap with a long-running campaign codenamed Contagious Interview , which has been observed leveraging the EtherHiding technique to distribute malware since February 2025. Contagious Interview is the name given to a series of attacks in which blockchain and Web3 developers, among others, are targeted through fake job interviews, coding assignments, and video assessments, leading to the deployment of malware. These efforts typi...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new set of three extensions associated with the GlassWorm campaign, indicating continued attempts on part of threat actors to target the Visual Studio Code (VS Code) ecosystem. The extensions in question , which are still available for download, are listed below - ai-driven-dev.ai-driven-dev (3,402 downloads) adhamu.history-in-sublime-merge (4,057 downloads) yasuyuky.transient-emacs (2,431 downloads) GlassWorm, first documented by Koi Security late last month, refers to a campaign in which threat actors leverage VS Code extensions on the Open VSX Registry and the Microsoft Extension Marketplace to harvest Open VSX, GitHub, and Git credentials, drain funds from 49 different cryptocurrency wallet extensions, and drop additional tools for remote access. What makes the malware notable is that it uses invisible Unicode characters to hide malicious code in code editors and abuses the pilfered credentials to compromise additional extens...

A security weakness has been disclosed in the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered code editor Cursor that could trigger code execution when a maliciously crafted repository is opened using the program. The issue stems from the fact that an out-of-the-box security setting is disabled by default, opening the door for attackers to run arbitrary code on users' computers with their privileges. "Cursor ships with Workspace Trust disabled by default, so VS Code-style tasks configured with runOptions.runOn: 'folderOpen' auto-execute the moment a developer browses a project," Oasis Security said in an analysis. "A malicious .vscode/tasks.json turns a casual 'open folder' into silent code execution in the user's context." Cursor is an AI-powered fork of Visual Studio Code, which supports a feature called Workspace Trust to allow developers to safely browse and edit code regardless of where it came from or who wrote it. With this option disab...

Two malicious packages discovered in the npm package repository have been found to conceal an open source information stealer malware called  TurkoRat . The packages – named nodejs-encrypt-agent and nodejs-cookie-proxy-agent – were collectively downloaded approximately 1,200 times and were available for more than two months before they were identified and taken down. ReversingLabs, which broke down the details of the campaign, described TurkoRat as an information stealer capable of harvesting sensitive information such as login credentials, website cookies, and data from cryptocurrency wallets.  While nodejs-encrypt-agent came fitted with the malware inside, nodejs-cookie-proxy-agent was found to disguise the trojan as a dependency under the name axios-proxy. nodejs-encrypt-agent was also engineered to masquerade as another legitimate npm module known as  agent-base , which has been downloaded over 25 million times to date. The list of the rogue packages and their a...