Config Files That Run Code: Supply Chain Security Blindspot
62 points - today at 9:35 AM
Sourceembedding-shape
today at 1:00 PM
Is this why Windows Defender is prompting me 2-3 times a day to submit my codex/config.toml to Microsoft for "malware analysis"? I've said no every time so far, since my first thought is "What could even be hidden there?" when I see the dialog yet again, I'm guessing Microsoft would love to see how people use their competitors' products though.
You might as well click yes, since it's all been uploaded as telemetry anyways.
IcyWindows
today at 2:23 PM
Citation needed
giancarlostoro
today at 3:20 PM
Hell I've seen things that shouldn't be up there just scooped up by Microsoft, I had to opt-out because it was just showing my PII look ups into my Microsoft accounts search history.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-search-a...
The final straw for me was when I saw that Microsoft Defender by default could send files to their servers for inspection, and I couldn't see what was sent previously, nor was this an opt-in option, it was on by default. I have anything from PII to highly proprietary things on my computer, I don't need them being "flagged" by Microsoft for arbitrary reasons. I have been on Linux full time for the last few years since.
Tangurena2
today at 2:22 PM
I've heard about these attacks but never really had the time to understood what was happening. Some of our junior devs use VS Code, so now we have something to point them at.
VS Code will helpfully warn you when you open a folder that has a git repository.. it asks if you trust the developers since opening the folder could result in bad things happening. So this might not be such a big deal for VS Code users.
I think that assumption is very dangerous: if your editor only prompts when you first open the project, it won’t help when that project is compromised later or if you checkout a merge request from someone untrustworthy/compromised and are mentally thinking “my project is safe” even though you’re a single gh/glab command away from that directory having anything an outside party wants.
You know they're just gonna click yes, right?
That prompt is just there so they can say "your fault!"
Well, in that case it totally is their fault...
MeetingsBrowser
today at 3:22 PM
Only juniors are suing VSCode? What are others using?
stronglikedan
today at 4:21 PM
prob Cursor (also affected). at least that's preferred in my org
> VS Code, Cursor, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, npm, Composer, and Bundler all support config files that can carry a shell command.
I think they, and the CIA, call it a feature. Just like messenger apps which try to "execute" every "image file" or link thrown at them.
It's far from a blindspot. People have been yelling about this from the rooftops for the last several years.
No one cares about security. People used to care for a fairly short period of time after something bad happened to them, but even that seems to have gone by the wayside as breaches, leaks, and use of exploited code has become normalized.
mikepurvis
today at 3:19 PM
It's always been a discussion in packaging, around build/install/configure time, think like setup.py, Debian's postinst, etc.
The rise of editors that will own your system just by browsing to the wrong folder without opening or running anything is relatively speaking newer, but I think most people in HN audience should be able to intuit some of the risks, especially when untrusted PRs and semi-trusted LLM bots are in the mix with your "trusted" codebase.
>but I think most people in HN audience should be able to intuit some of the risks
Only a small subset of the worlds programmers are on HN, and one might assume they are more security aware then those that are not. Which means there's a shit load of people opening stuff they shouldn't be.
> The rise of editors that will own your system just by browsing to the wrong folder without opening or running anything is relatively speaking newer, but I think most people in HN audience should be able to intuit some of the risks, especially when untrusted PRs and semi-trusted LLM bots are in the mix with your "trusted" codebase.
This is kind of my point. People are doing things that are objectively stupid from a security perspective on a daily basis, and actively rejecting the idea of protecting themselves because they keep doing it after either identifying some risk themselves, being told about it directly, or being told about how others were negatively impacted by the same actions.
And in my opinion, the benefits they get from these changes to their dev environment are negligible, and that's not even getting into how every file is potentially executable code to an LLM.
> No one cares about security.
Not true, the C suite cares a LOT about security.
You need that human shield, that person to blame when it does go wrong...
continueops_com
today at 5:20 PM
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sieabahlpark
today at 12:01 PM
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