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Malicious VSCode extensions with millions of installs discovered (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
submitted 2 months ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/programming@programming.dev
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[-] Kuinox@lemmy.world 48 points 2 months ago

Fake news headline. There is no virus installed on millions of computer.
An extension typosquatting an extension with million of install managed to be installed a few hundred of times.

[-] savedbythezsh@sh.itjust.works 40 points 2 months ago

I believe they're referring to lower down in the article, where the researchers analyzed existing extensions on the marketplace:

After the successful experiment, the researchers decided to dive into the threat landscape of the VSCode Marketplace, using a custom tool they developed named 'ExtensionTotal' to find high-risk extensions, unpack them, and scrutinize suspicious code snippets.

Through this process, they have found the following:

  • 1,283 with known malicious code (229 million installs).
  • 8,161 communicating with hardcoded IP addresses.
  • 1,452 running unknown executables.
  • 2,304 that are using another publisher's Github repo, indicating they are a copycat.
[-] Kuinox@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

If you look at the code of one of the "malicious code", it hit a ... local IP, not a remote one.

[-] lowleveldata@programming.dev 18 points 2 months ago

Does that mean the hacker is in my room??

[-] noobface@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

We're seeing connections from IP addresses that aren't even routable on the internet. We're compromised. Time to format.

[-] QuadriLiteral@programming.dev 2 points 2 months ago

Turns out you were the hacker all along

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this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
239 points (94.8% liked)

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