January 10, 2023
Aqua Security researchers discovered that hackers are conducting supply chain attacks using Visual Studio Marketplace. According to the report, attackers could impersonate popular VS Code extensions to hoodwink developers into downloading malicious versions.
The attack vector aimed at the Visual Studio Code extensions marketplace could be used to upload rogue extensions masquerading as their legitimate counterparts in order to launch supply chain attacks.
Aqua also discovered that a threat actor can not only imitate a popular extension by changing the URL slightly, but the marketplace also enables the malicious actor to utilize the same title and extension publisher details, such as the project repository information.
Aqua claims that a proof-of-concept (PoC) extension posing as the Prettier code formatting utility received over 1,000 installations in 48 hours from developers all over the world. It has since been removed.
According to Ilay Goldman, a security researcher at Aqua, the method “may operate as an entrance point for an assault on multiple organizations. Goldman added that “All extensions execute with the privileges of the user that has opened the VSCode without any sandbox.”
The sources for this piece include an article in DevClass.
