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GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

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Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#141
post #60
post #24

Maybe I'm missing something really obvious, but... 3,800 repos? I guess I find it kind of surprising they have that many!

Uber had 8000 repos at one point with 2000 engineers - https://highscalability.com/lessons-learned-from-scaling-ube...

Probably most of them are forks of some public repo with some patch applied and half of those are probably not even used internally anymore.

Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#142

I really hope this pushes Microsoft to add a explicit permission system to VS Code extensions, and improve security of dev containers.

I really hope this pushes users (here: devs and maintainers) to decrease their reliance on Microsoft and especially stop outsourcing security to them. Migrate off vscode already.

Emacs has been a viable option for going on a half century now. The GNU Emacs 31 branch[0] was cut recently and is barreling towards a new release. It might be time to give it another look.

I'm not saying its package ecosystem isn't vulnerable to these kind of attacks, it is, but it's at least developed by folks with very different goals and ambitions than Microsoft.

[0]: https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/master/etc/NEWS

Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#143
post #94
post #44

The (lack of) security of VSCode has always been astounding. People have asked for sandboxing extensions for years [0] with little to no progress, and issues have been discussed a lot (e.g. [1][2]). I guess it hasn't been a big issue, likely because most developers are not complete idiots. But it only takes one developer and one bad extension to consequences like this. I mean, I understand that it is hard to sandbox…

Why would you sandbox extension? Just don’t install crap maybe.

Even if you don't install crap, the latest strategy is attacking the developer of one of the extensions or their build process so you can push a malware update to an otherwise legitimate extension.

Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#145
post #123
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of. A vscode workspace can trivially execute code on the machine that runs the server end of vscode. (This is how building works -- there is no sandbox unless the workspace config explicitly uses some kind of sandbox.) So the workspace can usually trivially elevate permissions to take over the vscode server, including installing extensions on it without asking you. In principle, there is a teeny tiny bit of isol…

It would be nice if there was an easy way to prevent people from installing vscode remotes on a shared server... Probably can run an ebpf routine to disallow creation of folders named . vscode*

The shared part has almost nothing to do with this, IMO.

Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#146

Has there been any confirmation of this from a source other than X? It's weird that that's the only source, and therefore makes me distrust the entire story.

someone above mentioned it's been confirmed as nx console here: https://github.blog/security/investigating-unauthorized-acce...

Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#147
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i mean, then you say it like that…

Microsoft is the inverse hand of Midas, turns everything into shit.

Everything Microsoft makes sucks. If they decided to make vacuum cleaners though, they wouldn’t suck, they would blow.

Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope this pushes users (here: devs and maintainers) to decrease their reliance on Microsoft and especially stop outsourcing security to them. Migrate off vscode already.

I won't say "you can take my VS Code from cold dead hands" or anything, but it is a very good tool, and Microsoft hasn't yet fucked it up the way they have so many other things. I guess I'd say "you take my VS Code ... willingly ... but only after M$ fucks it up and makes me not want it anymore (like they've done to everything else they acquired)".

Vs code is a weapon, designed to fracture. It being “good” is a weapon as well. https://ghuntley.com/fracture/

Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#149
post #55

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..…

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.

Re: GitHub confirms breach of 3,800 repos via malicious VSCode extension

#150

I'm more surprised hackers found a large enough uptime window to do this.

For those not getting the joke, GitHub has had an increasingly difficult keeping itself up since Microsoft acquired them. It's gotten a lot worse (and made news) more recently, as the downtime as increased.

Giggity.
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