Backdoors in official Claude Code extensions

(cyberplace.social)

644 points | by dsr_ 5 hours ago

3 comments

  • tomhow 1 hour ago
  • altbdoor 4 hours ago
    • sharpshadow 4 hours ago
      Looks like a solid response with instructions and scripts how to get rid of the infection, but it doesn’t explain how it got there.
      • justusw 2 hours ago
        Agreed, it doesn't offer a root cause analysis. Remedies are good but how do you prove that it won't happen again? Remember that these are never singular incidents but part of a bad security culture.
    • yubblegum 4 hours ago
      > Cursor: "This malicious version of the extension was not developed by Anthropic."

      Wtf does that mean.

      • mirashii 3 hours ago
        Given they mentioned taking down and rebuilding the marketplace registry in that post, it seems equally likely that Cursor’s infrastructure was the source of the intrusion and a folks are jumping the gun on attribution.

        Edit: I was correct. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50304129

      • olmo23 3 hours ago
        It sounds to me like they're saying it wasn't an Anthropic employee which decided to drop an SSH backdoor.
        • LastTrain 3 hours ago
          Well that is even worse...
      • bunderbunder 3 hours ago
        I would guess it’s supposed to communicate a few things. One big one is, ”Our AI software factory didn’t do it. Don’t worry, letting Claude spin away with limited human supervision is still safe.”
      • sourcecodeplz 4 hours ago
        someone got access to the account that can publish extension on cursor marketplace?
      • stingraycharles 3 hours ago
        It means that Anthropic did not intentionally develop a malicious version, obviously. But it’s a bit disingenuous and tries to suggest that it wasn’t Anthropic that uploaded it and/or wasn’t published under Anthropic’s name, which isn’t true.
      • noitpmeder 4 hours ago
        Just by people they paid to represent them.
      • LastTrain 3 hours ago
        It means we are from now on in an era of plausible deniability.
      • internet_points 3 hours ago
        we got hacked by someone other than ourselves this time
      • dgellow 3 hours ago
        It would be hilarious if that’s an obfuscated way to say Claude developed it. “Claude, who was birthed but not hired by Anthropic, went rogue by hijacking the extension”
    • oefrha 2 hours ago
      > Related posts: Cursor earns AIUC-1 certification for agent security and reliability

      The irony.

  • rhedak 1 hour ago
    These days no one is immune to these kind of attacks... Honestly it will only get worse from here.