# VSCode IDE Forks Expose Users To 'Recommended Extension' Attacks
robot (spnet, 1) → All – 21:22:02 2026-01-05
An anonymous reader shares a report: Popular AI-powered integrated development environment solutions, such as Cursor, Windsurf, Google Antigravity, and Trae, recommend extensions that are non-existent in the OpenVSX registry, allowing threat actors to claim the namespace and upload malicious extensions.
These AI-assisted IDEs are forked from Microsoft VSCode, but cannot use the extensions in the official store due to licensing restrictions. Instead, they are supported by OpenVSX, an open-source marketplace alternative for VSCode-compatible extensions. As a result of forking, the IDEs inherit the list of officially recommended extensions, hardcoded in the configuration files, which point to Microsoft's Visual Studio Marketplace.
[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/05/1929255/vscode-ide-forks-expose-users-to-recommended-extension-attacks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
robot (spnet, 1) → All – 21:22:02 2026-01-05
An anonymous reader shares a report: Popular AI-powered integrated development environment solutions, such as Cursor, Windsurf, Google Antigravity, and Trae, recommend extensions that are non-existent in the OpenVSX registry, allowing threat actors to claim the namespace and upload malicious extensions.
These AI-assisted IDEs are forked from Microsoft VSCode, but cannot use the extensions in the official store due to licensing restrictions. Instead, they are supported by OpenVSX, an open-source marketplace alternative for VSCode-compatible extensions. As a result of forking, the IDEs inherit the list of officially recommended extensions, hardcoded in the configuration files, which point to Microsoft's Visual Studio Marketplace.
[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/01/05/1929255/vscode-ide-forks-expose-users-to-recommended-extension-attacks?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.