Nobody should do 'npm install' or 'pip install' on their machine.
Using a proper sandboxing(https://github.com/ashishb/amazing-sandbox) regularly will drastically limit the blast radius of these attacks.
Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
51–60 of 211 posts
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I argued for years that we had too few workers for our total project count and management argued that most projects were idle and so it was fine to have so many per worker. Welp.
I think web-based IDEs like GitHub Codespaces (but even VSCode with tunnels) is part of the solution because at the very least you can get an isolated dev environment per project. I've been advocating for this for as long as I remember. Unfortunately, most developers don't like them so it is a though sell.
Is the theory here that the browser cannot be co-opted to infect web-based repositories?
Also: thinking of how yt-dlp can integrate with browser cookies now and the malware paths that opens up. (This is part of why Chrome wants HSM cookies, I expect: DRM and opsec!)
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#53Nobody should do 'npm install' or 'pip install' on their machine. Using a proper sandboxing( https://github.com/ashishb/amazing-sandbox ) regularly will drastically limit the blast radius of these attacks.
> Nobody should do 'npm install' or 'pip install' on their machine.
What alternative do you suggest?
Do you mean not install outside a sandbox?
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#54Their source has the list of the 73 disabled repositories: https://opensourcemalware.com/blog/miasma-reaches-azure
AI;DR: Azure (49) azure-functions-agents-runtime azure-functions-connector-extension azure-functions-core-tools azure-functions-docker azure-functions-dotnet-extensions azure-functions-dotnet-worker azure-functions-durable-extension azure-functions-durable-js azure-functions-durable-powershell azure-functions-durable-python azure-functions-extension-bundles azure-functions-golang-worker azure-functions-host azure-fun…
There is such a thing as too much software.
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#55Please, someone explain how it's possible to add obfuscated file to so many repositories? Do they don't have any code reviews?
Also, the title is misleading, setup adds config to be auto executed by people who work on the repo. They would have to use vscode/cursor/claude/gemini. People who use codex / opencode / other harnesses are safe I guess.
Details: https://www.stepsecurity.io/blog/miasma-worm-hits-microsoft-...
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#56Nobody should do 'npm install' or 'pip install' on their machine. Using a proper sandboxing( https://github.com/ashishb/amazing-sandbox ) regularly will drastically limit the blast radius of these attacks.
> https://github.com/ashishb/amazing-sandbox
Does your Docker backend run commands in rootless containers? I skimmed the code but didn't see anything to confirm this.
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#57The Age of Agentic Development.
I haven’t worked on any web app in months, I don’t use LLMs, I update my Linux system once a month, and I increasingly feel I should just not do anything, not install or update any software and for the love of God, do not touch anything that’s shipped with npm.
Most of my userspace apps are in Flatpak sandboxes (yeah they are not great), but otherwise it feels like isolation and airgapping is the most sensible solution for now, and it’ll get increasingly worse unless the vibe coders somehow learn how to write robust software.
It’s like during the black plague: the (software) world has become dangerous, we have no way to contain it, it is unfeasible to remove yourself completely from the world, so you better pray really hard you don’t catch the bug and infect your peers. How’s that for a field we used to call software engineering or computer science?
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
a friend of mine has a very different solution: he codes everything by hand. he says that the time you need to research to include a new package you can actually use to code the piece you need. and he for sure doesn't have the problems of transitive dependencies
But now he needs to develop, test and maintain that code. Left pad is easily hand coded, react framework not so much.
his projects were GUIs for machines (HMI)
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think web-based IDEs like GitHub Codespaces (but even VSCode with tunnels) is part of the solution because at the very least you can get an isolated dev environment per project. I've been advocating for this for as long as I remember. Unfortunately, most developers don't like them so it is a though sell.
Is the theory here that the browser cannot be co-opted to infect web-based repositories? Also: thinking of how yt-dlp can integrate with browser cookies now and the malware paths that opens up. (This is part of why Chrome wants HSM cookies, I expect: DRM and opsec!)
In this scenario the malware will not be on the device but in an isolated dev environment on a remote machine. So it will have access to whatever was configured in that repo but hopefully the project is isolated enough to ensure containment and prevent cross-pollination.
Re: Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers
#60Please, someone explain how it's possible to add obfuscated file to so many repositories? Do they don't have any code reviews? Also, the title is misleading, setup adds config to be auto executed by people who work on the repo. They would have to use vscode/cursor/claude/gemini. People who use codex / opencode / other harnesses are safe I guess. Details: https://www.stepsecurity.io/blog/miasma-worm-hits-microsoft-...
if an account with the ability to push to the repo was taken over, there wouldn't be any PR review.