Anthropic Claude Code Extension Compromised (Kevin Beaumont Thread)
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Anthropic Visual Studio Claude Code extension on Cursor has malware in it, which creates a remote access Trojan to desktops.
https://phorion.io/blog/offical-claude-code-vsx-compromise/
That extension has millions of installs, one of the most popular extensions in DevOps. It creates a reverse SSH backdoor.
Anthropic silently removed the backdoor 7 hours ago and hasn’t disclosed a security incident.
The plugin auto updates so every org will have been impacted.
To be clear this is a supply chain attack, the threat actor got reverse SSH (command line) connectivity to Anthropic customer environments at scale.
FWIW the compromised version, 2.1.313, was removed from repos. 2.1.314 is the ‘fixed’ version.
Anthropic's Claude Code Cursor extension was also compromised, same remote access backdoor https://cursor.com/blog/claude-code-extension-security-notice
Anthropic still haven't admitted what has happened.
I've written a blog - Anthropic have been hacked to deliver remote access malware to millions of endpoints where developers use Claude Code.
Threat actor's C2 server is now offline.
C2 server collected for each victim endpoint:
- hostname
- username
- OS
- architecture
- home directory path
- environment variable names
- working directories
- configured Git email
It then ran a reverse SSH connection allowing the threat actor to pick and chose which victims to have hands on keyboard access to.
I'm confirmed the new, replacement versions Anthropic published overnight (which auto update) do not remove the prior backdoors and recon activity. So SSH still reverse calls out etc, you need to manually remediate every impacted VSCode and Cursor system.
Anthropic must tell customers what happened in a completely transparent way.
I've confirmed Binance use Claude Code on Cursor with this extension.
Anthropic won't comment, nor are account managers.
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