HUhubraumhugo·Aug 4, 2025Submission
Malicious script injected into Amazon Q Developer for VS Code
1 points · Open discussionaws
aws-toolkit-vscode
TypeScript2019–2025
aws / aws-toolkit-vscode
aws-toolkit-vscode
Amazon Q, CodeCatalyst, Local Lambda debug, SAM/CFN syntax, ECS Terminal, AWS resources
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13Mentions
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Amazon Q, CodeCatalyst, Local Lambda debug, SAM/CFN syntax, ECS Terminal, AWS resources
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year13 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2019-07-19 12:07:08 UTC to 2025-08-04 06:23:04 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 12 | 3 | 9 |
What Hacker News says
13 sourcesMalicious script injected into Amazon Q Developer for Visual Studio
1 points · Open discussionThese are the malicious commits in question:
https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/commit/678851b
https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/commit/1294b38
Which were made using an "inappropriately scoped GitHub token" from build config files:
https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/AWS-2025-...
> The incident points to a gaping security hole in generative AI that has gone largely unnoticed [...] The hacker effectively showed how easy it could be to manipulate artificial intelligence tools — through a public repository like Github — with the the right prompt.
Use of an LLM seems mostly incidental and not the source of any security holes in this case (at least not as far as we know - may be that vibe coding is responsible for the incorrectly scoped token). The attacker with write access to the repo could have just as easily m
Read the rest
ade the extension run `rm -rf /` directly.
Original article from 404: https://www.404media.co/hacker-plants-computer-wiping-comman...
And here's the commit: https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/commit/1294b38b7fa...
In Amazon's AI Coding Revealed a Dirty Little SecretUpdate: I've uncovered the attacker's commit to the now-deleted "stability" branch that includes the offending prompt, it's https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/commit/1294b38b7fa.... (Archive: https://archive.md/s9WnJ)
In AWS merges malicious PR into Amazon Q>My guess is the PR took advantage of some code injection possibilities in the GitHub Actions on the repo to grant the attacker admin access. But that’s a wild guess.
Someone below mentioned the offending commit[1], which seems to be a doppelganger of another commit[2]. Maybe the exact commit message broke the automation?
[1] https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/commit/678851bbe97...
[2] https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/commit/d1959b99684...
In AWS merges malicious PR into Amazon QI think you've got it!
- That commit's date matches the date in the 404media article (July 13th)
- The commit message is totally unrelated to the code (highly suspicious)
- The code itself downloads additional code at runtime (highly highly suspicious)
I have not yet been unable to uncover the code it downloads though. It downloaded code that was hosted in the same repo, https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/, just on the "stability" branch. (downloads a file called "scripts/extensionNode.bk") The "stability" branch presumably was a branch created by the attacker, and has presumably since been deleted by Amazon.
In AWS merges malicious PR into Amazon QAh, I think it might have been this, which was reverted and seems to have been pushed directly to master: https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/commit/678851bbe97...
In AWS merges malicious PR into Amazon QReverted here: https://github.com/aws/aws-toolkit-vscode/pull/7710
In Hacker Plants Computer 'Wiping' Commands in Amazon's AI Coding AgentAWS Q for VSCode is having issues
3 points · Open discussionAWS Toolkit for Visual Studio Code
1 points · Open discussion