4 ms·
Much less click-baity if a more descriptive title would have been used: "Malicious copy of Cursor AI extension used for $500k theft"
by notachatbot123 1y ago
Much less click-baity if a more descriptive title would have been used: "Malicious copy of Cursor AI extension used for $500k theft"
- samrus 1y agoThe title does make it sound like the AI itself lead to the vulnerability, which is false But cursor isnt off the hook. It wasnt a malicious copy, it was a legit copy of the cursor IDE distirbuting a package they allowed on the extension store. This is on them. The lesson here is to not make a vscode fork if you arent able to maintian it the way microsoft does. Move fast and break (the user's) things i guess
- worble 1y agoThe article says they use open-vsx, which is managed by the Eclipse foundation. It's not really anything to do with cursor, other than the fact they're allowing you access to the only other vscode marketplace that all the forks use.
- btown 1y agoThe biggest "reveal" here is that open-vsx has far less effective anti-fraud measures than the end users of Cursor, Windsurf, etc. expect. It seems that an attacker was able to easily manipulate download counts, placing their malicious extension high in search results. And this is far from the first open-vsx vulnerability in the past month. See: https://blog.koi.security/marketplace-takeover-how-we-couldve-taken-over-every-developer-using-a-vscode-fork-f0f8cf104d44 https://blog.koi.security/marketplace-takeover-how-we-couldv... which describes how open-vsx was installing arbitrary packages and running their build scripts in a privileged environment. And the instructions to report malicious extensions, even now, are practically nonexistent: https://github.com/EclipseFdn/open-vsx.org/wiki/Guidelines-on-Extension-Requests#questions-about-licenses-and-potentially-malicious-extensions https://github.com/EclipseFdn/open-vsx.org/wiki/Guidelines-o... With billions of dollars being poured into this ecosystem, it's mind-boggling that security is being treated as such an afterthought. Consider this when choosing tools.
- rwmj 1y agoYes, let's blame the guys working on something for free, instead of the company which raised nearly a billion in VC money but couldn't be bothered to check.
- btown 1y agoIf you run part of the software supply chain ecosystem, put it on the web without any kind of "alpha" or "insecure" language that's highly visible to end users on every package, and even distribute professional white papers and marketing-style landing pages to promote it (e.g. https://outreach.eclipse.foundation/openvsx https://outreach.eclipse.foundation/openvsx), but create a deployment architecture that executes arbitrary third party code during every deploy (as was the case before https://github.com/EclipseFdn/publish-extensions/pull/881/files https://github.com/EclipseFdn/publish-extensions/pull/881/fi... landed to fix the issue in the link above) - I do indeed think that the Eclipse Foundation bears some responsibility here. And for sure, Cursor and others should have funded security hardening of their extension marketplace. The lion's share of the blame lies on that. But the Eclipse Foundation is in a position to incentivize that investment by making it clear to end users that open-vsx is still at an experimental level of stability and security, rather than promoting it as an enterprise-ready product with white papers and all.
- rwmj 1y agoThere are companies that will provide quality guarantees and product liability insurance for open source software (I work for one in fact), so maybe Cursor should have used one of those.
- edg5000 1y ago@rwmj The Eclipse foundation is actually backed by some really big companies. Check out the sponsors page. (And a fun but irrelevant bonus fact: Eclipse was originally made by IBM)
- rwmj 1y ago
- a_wild_dandan 1y agoI blame my tool, Cursor. They blame their tool, open-vsx. We're either both right about that logic, or both wrong. Either way, I expect consistency in how the product I pay for assigns/accepts blame. Cursor's response will be interesting.
- infecto 1y agoI am not so sure. They don’t own the registry for extension. Even in VSCode I always thought one should be cautious.
- AIPedant 1y agoCursor does bear significant responsibility in the sense that OpenVSX transformed from a niche service used by free software nerds into a major component of many developers’ process. There were a few months were Cursor were the scrappy upstarts, but now they’re a $200M/year company and they have $200M/year responsibilities. They can’t just wash their hands of it and pretend OpenVSX is a public service.
- piker 1y agoI sense a settlement agreement with strong non-disparagement terms is in the works here.
- infecto 1y agoWhy in the open source world do goal posts always move? It’s a public open source service. Speaking purely on this vulnerability, it’s an extension listed in the OpenVSX ecosystem. Regardless if Cursor vetted all of these extensions or not I would still be incredibly hesitant like everyone should be. Now do we need better solutions? Definitely and I do hope cursor will contribute towards it but I won’t hold them to it. They switched to OpenVSX less than a month ago, too soon to really say much at this point.
- AIPedant 1y agoI didn’t move any goalposts. Cursor set up the goalposts themselves by making a small volunteer-run service a critical component of their massive for-profit product. It’s greedy and irresponsible.
- infecto 1y ago“Open VSX is an open-source registry for VS Code extensions. It can be used by any development environment that supports such extensions.” Sure sounds like you are moving goalposts around. Of course I hope Cursor contribute back but it’s been 20days and I am not an insider I have no idea what the plan is.
- gametorch 1y agoCursor is off the hook in my system of ethics. If you're running code without reading it, that's on you. The exploiter is evil. Cursor has no culpability here.
- vFunct 1y agoYah no that's not how it works. It's the system designer's responsibility to make sure you can run correct code without you reading it. If you have to read it, then your system has already failed.
- gametorch 1y agoYeah no that is how it works. I want people to release cool software without the insane burden you describe. If they want to delegate that burden to users or ask them to pay for someone else to assume the burden, great. I love Cursor. They haven't failed me. I'm not running arbitrary code and I suffer none of the consequences. Furthermore, it probably literally says you're running random 3rd party code when you use extensions and Cursor is not liable. This is basic human responsibility 101. You are responsible for your own actions.
- buttscicles 1y agoYou've audited the Cursor codebase then? Along with every other tool you use?
- gametorch 1y agoNo. I trust Cursor isn't trying to screw me. I don't trust random 3rd party extensions. They might be trying to screw me. This is the exact reason why I don't touch npm. I'm not prescribing a formal set of rules by which you should or shouldn't trust things. I'm just a reasonable person. Cursor is an unrelated 3rd party to this situation, which is probably clearly described in their Terms of Service. Blaming them reeks of denying responsibility for your own actions. If you want Cursor to audit every 3rd party extension, they'd probably want you to pay them for it. Just like every commercially licensed Linux distro.
- throwawayffffas 1y agoIt's not their extension store.
- infecto 1y agoEven better. Malicious copy of extension found on OpenVSX. Then in the opening paragraph mention the tools using this registry, like cursor.