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Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

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Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#201

Post by boomlinde »

DrBazza wrote: post #198
boomlinde wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather solve file access at an entirely different level. A filesystem is a reasonable, editor-agnostic abstraction for this, and I can use sshfs to mount a remote directory over SSH in a way that's invisible to whatever tools I prefer to use to edit the files. If you have a jumphost chain, you can configure that in the SSH config. I don't know what a devcontainer is exactly, but if it's a container in the sen…

File access isn't the same as tool access. You need to run tools on your ssh host as well. And a devcontainer does indeed equal a (docker) container. The name is very specific and describes shipping a full developer environments so that 'you' do not have to install gcc-toolset-15, or boost 1.83, or mold, or python 3.11, and so on. https://containers.dev/

> File access isn't the same as tool access.

Running tools remotely isn't the same as remote editing, so you'll have to forgive the misunderstanding.

> You need to run tools on your ssh host as well.

`ssh user@remote tool`. Indeed, the tool you run on the remote host could be a text editor in itself.

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#202

Post by pezgrande »

Tyriar wrote: post #199

VS Code team member here :wave: As called out elsewhere, workspace trust is literally the protection here which is being circumvented. You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording. Sure you may find this annoying, but it's literally a security warning in a giant modal that forces you to chose. Even if automatic tasks were disabled by default, you'd still be vuln…

would it possible to show to alert only when there are potentials threats instead of every time a folder is open? Like showing a big red alert when opening a folder for the first time with a ".vscode" folder in it?

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#203

Post by _bent »

Tyriar wrote: post #199

VS Code team member here :wave: As called out elsewhere, workspace trust is literally the protection here which is being circumvented. You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording. Sure you may find this annoying, but it's literally a security warning in a giant modal that forces you to chose. Even if automatic tasks were disabled by default, you'd still be vuln…

I think it would be better to defer the Workspace trust popup and immediately open in restricted mode; maybe add an icon for it in the bottom info bar & have certain actions notify the user that they'd have to opt in before they'd work.

Because right now you are triggering the cookie banner reflex where a user just instinctively dismisses any warnings, because they want to get on with their work / prevent having their flow state broken.

There should also probably be some more context in the warning text on what a malicious repo could do, because clearly people don't understand why are you are asking if you trust the authors.

And while you're at it, maybe add some "virus scanner" that can read through the repo and flag malicious looking tasks & scripts to warn the user. This would be "AI" based so surely someone could even get a job promotion out of this for leading the initiative :)

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#204

Post by CWuestefeld »

Tyriar wrote: post #199

VS Code team member here :wave: As called out elsewhere, workspace trust is literally the protection here which is being circumvented. You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording. Sure you may find this annoying, but it's literally a security warning in a giant modal that forces you to chose. Even if automatic tasks were disabled by default, you'd still be vuln…

I suspect that you're relying too heavily on the user here. Even for myself, a very experienced developer, I don't have a flash of insight over what my risk exposure might be for what I'm opening at this moment. I don't have a comprehensive picture of all the implications, all I'm thinking is "I need to open this file and twiddle some text in it". Expecting us to surface from our flow, think about the risks and make an informed decision might on the surface seem like a fair expectation, but in the real world, I don't think it's going to happen.

Your recommendation makes sense as a strategy to follow ahead of time, before you're in that flow state. But now you're relying on people to have known about the question beforehand, and have this strategy worked out ahead of time.

If you're going to rely on this so heavily, maybe you should make that strategy more official, and surface it to users ahead of time - maybe in some kind of security configuration wizard or something. Relying on them to interrupt flow and work it out is asking too much when it's a security question that doesn't have obvious implications.

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#205

Post by weberer »

Tyriar wrote: post #199

VS Code team member here :wave: As called out elsewhere, workspace trust is literally the protection here which is being circumvented. You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording. Sure you may find this annoying, but it's literally a security warning in a giant modal that forces you to chose. Even if automatic tasks were disabled by default, you'd still be vuln…

>You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording.

I can see the exact message you're referring to in the linked article. It says "Code provides features that *may* automatically execute files in this folder." It keeps things ambiguous and comes off as one of the hundreds of legal CYA pop-ups that you see throughout your day. Its not clear that "Yes, I trust the authors" means "Go ahead and start executing shell scripts". Its also not clear what exactly the difference is between the two choices regarding how usable the IDE is if you say no.

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#206

Post by Tyriar »

pezgrande wrote: post #202
Tyriar wrote: post #199

VS Code team member here :wave: As called out elsewhere, workspace trust is literally the protection here which is being circumvented. You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording. Sure you may find this annoying, but it's literally a security warning in a giant modal that forces you to chose. Even if automatic tasks were disabled by default, you'd still be vuln…

would it possible to show to alert only when there are potentials threats instead of every time a folder is open? Like showing a big red alert when opening a folder for the first time with a ".vscode" folder in it?

It's not just the .vscode folder though, the Python extension for example executes code in order to provide language services. How could this threat detection possibly be complete? In this new LLM-assisted world a malicious repository could be as innocuous as a plain text prompt injection attack hidden in a markdown file, or some random command/script that seems like it could be legitimate. There are other mitigations in place and in progress to help with the LLM issue, but it's a hard problem.

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#207

Post by alistairSH »

ses1984 wrote: post #168
CjHuber wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the way it is handled. Imagine Excel actively prompting you with a pop up every time you open a sheet: "Do you trust the authors of this file? If not you will loose out on cool features and the sheet runs in restricted mode" No it doesn't because restricted mode without Macros is the default and not framed like something bad or loosing out on all of those nice features,

The point of an IDE is that it does stuff a simple text editor does not.

Sure, but as noted elsewhere, the IDEs generally don't "do stuff" by default just on opening a file folder. VSCode, by default, will run some programs as soon as you open a folder.

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#208

Post by weberer »

Levitz wrote: post #169
nottorp wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered why. Now I finally know that it auto runs code in that folder. Who thought this is a good idea and why wasn't it specified in ALL CAPS in that dialog? Is it even documented anywhere? Very infrequent vscode user here, beginning to think it's some kind of Eclipse.

I mean it's not in caps, but it's literally the first line in the dialog after the header: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editing/workspaces/worksp... I'm big on user first, if that dialog had sirens blaring, a gif and ten arrows pointing that "THIS MAY EXECUTE CODE" and people still didn't get the idea, I'd say it needs fixing. It can't be said that they didn't try or that they hid it though.

>"THIS MAY EXECUTE CODE"

So at the end of the day its still unclear whether it executes code or not? Just say "this WILL execute code" and specify exactly which code it tries to execute by default.

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#209

Post by Tyriar »

weberer wrote: post #205
Tyriar wrote: post #199

VS Code team member here :wave: As called out elsewhere, workspace trust is literally the protection here which is being circumvented. You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording. Sure you may find this annoying, but it's literally a security warning in a giant modal that forces you to chose. Even if automatic tasks were disabled by default, you'd still be vuln…

>You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording. I can see the exact message you're referring to in the linked article. It says "Code provides features that *may* automatically execute files in this folder." It keeps things ambiguous and comes off as one of the hundreds of legal CYA pop-ups that you see throughout your day. Its not clear that "Yes, I trust the aut…

"May" is the most correct word though, it's not guaranteed and VS Code (core) doesn't actually know if things will execute or not as a result of this due to extensions also depending on the feature. Running the "Manage Workspace Trust" command which is mentioned in the [docs being linked][0] to goes into more detail about what exactly is blocked, but we determined this is probably too much information and instead tried to distill it to simplify the decision. That single short sentence is essentially what workspace trust protects you from.

My hope has always been, but I know there are plenty of people that don't do this, is to think "huh, that sounds scary, maybe I should not trust it or understand more", not blinding say they trust.

[0]: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editing/workspaces/worksp...

Re: Threat actors expand abuse of Microsoft Visual Studio Code

#210

Post by ycombinatrix »

Tyriar wrote: post #199

VS Code team member here :wave: As called out elsewhere, workspace trust is literally the protection here which is being circumvented. You're warned when you open a folder whether you trust the origin/authors with pretty strong wording. Sure you may find this annoying, but it's literally a security warning in a giant modal that forces you to chose. Even if automatic tasks were disabled by default, you'd still be vuln…

The grey bar at the top that says "this is an untrusted workspace" is really annoying & encourages users to trust all workspaces.
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