Readit News6mile commented on New Python "RAT-as-a-library" named "Scopper" getsafety.com/blog-posts/... · Posted by u/6mile
This malware is a full-featured RAT that uses Telegram for C2 and is only 143 lines of code. It's "RAT-as-a-library" design means that we are already seeing criminals build more complext, customized malware on top of Scopper.
The undelete package lets you recover NPM packages that have been removed and are no longer in the NPM registry. Works for both the tarballs and metadata. I use it for malware research, but you can use it for whatever you want!
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 vulnerable if you trust the workspace. VS Code is an IDE and the core and extensions can execute code based on files within the folder in order to provide rich features like autocomplete, compilation, run tests, agentic coding, etc.
Before workspace trust existed, we started noticing many extensions and core features having their own version of workspace trust warnings popping up. Workspace trust unified this into a single in your face experience. It's perfectly fine to not trust the folder, you'll just enter restricted mode that will protect you and certain things will be degraded like language servers may not run, you don't be able to debug (executes code in vscode/launch.json), etc.
Ultimately we're shipping developer tool that can do powerful things like automating project compilation or dependency install when you open a folder. This attack vector capitalizes on neglectful developers that ignore a scary looking security warning. It certainly happens in practice, but workspace trust is pretty critical to the trust model of VS Code and is also an important part to improve the UX around it as we annoy you a _single_ time when you open the folder, not several times from various components using a JIT notification approach. I recall many discussions happening around the exact wording of the warning, it's a difficult to communicate concept in the small amount of words that it needs to use.
My recommendation is to use the check box to trust the parent or configure trusted folders. I personally have all my safe git clones in a dev/ folder which I configured to trust, but I also have a playground/ folder where I put random projects that I don't know much about and decide at the time I open something.
First, @Tyriar thanks for being a part of this conversation. I know you don't have to, and I want to let you know I get that you are choosing to contribute, and I personally appreciate it.
The reality is that VS Code ships in a way that is perfect for attackers to use tasks files to compromise developers:
1. You have to click "trust this code" on every repo you open, which is just noise and desensitizes the user to the real underlying security threat. What VS Code should do is warn you when there is a tasks file, especially if there is a "command" parameter in that tasks file.
2. You can add parameters like these to tasks files to disable some of the notification features so devs never see the notifications you are talking about: "presentation": { "reveal": "never", "echo": false, "focus": false, "close": true, "panel": "dedicated", "showReuseMessage": false}
3. Regardless of Microsofts observations that opening other people's code is risky, I want to remind you that all of us open other peoples code all day long, so it seems a little duplicitous to say "you'd still be vulnerable if you trust the workspace". I mean, that's kind of our jobs. Your "Workspaces" abstraction is great on paper, especially for project based workflows, but that's not the only way that most of us use VS Code. The issue here is that Microsoft created a new feature (tasks files) that executes things when I open code in VS Code. This is new, and separate from the intrinsic risk of opening other people's code. To ignore that fact to me seems like you are running away from the responsibility to address what you've created.
Because of the above points we are quickly seeing VS Code tasks file become the number one way that developers are being compromised by nation state actors (typically North Korea/Lazarus).
Just search github and you'll see what I mean: https://github.com/search?q=path%3Atasks.json+vercel.app&ref...
There are dozens and dozens of bad guys using this technique right now. Microsoft needs to step up. End of story.