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Security audit

Web Scraper Skill

Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk

Overview

The skill is a coherent web-scraping helper, but it needs Review because its Apify examples put API tokens in URLs and its scraping/data-sharing guidance is under-scoped.

Install only if users understand that scraping targets, queries, actor inputs, and results may be sent to Firecrawl or Apify. Prefer authorization headers and environment variables for tokens, avoid query-string tokens, do not scrape confidential/internal/authenticated pages without approval, and start with small limits and site-compliant use.

A.I.G

Vulnerability Patterns
  • Insecure Skill Coding PracticesFinds exploitable flaws such as hardcoded secrets or command injection
  • Skill Instruction HijackingAlters the agent's session goals or safety constraints when the skill loads
  • Agent Memory PoisoningWrites attacker-controlled rules into memory that affect later sessions
  • Remote Payload Retrieval and ExecutionFetches external code whose behavior can change after review
  • Embedded Malicious CodeShips malicious scripts inside the skill and executes them locally
Findings (2)

T09 · Insecure Skill Coding Practices

Warning
Location
SKILL.md:125
Finding

Apify API Token Exposed Through URL Query Parameters in Skill Instructions

Content
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Remediation
View remediation

T09 · Insecure Skill Coding Practices

Warning
Location
references/code-templates.md:111
Finding

Apify Code Templates Transmit API Tokens as Query Parameters

Content
View full analysis
``` TLS protects the URL while it is in transit, but it does not prevent the plaintext URL from being recorded at the client, reverse proxy, API service, telemetry layer, or debugging infrastructure. URL redaction is also less consistently applied than authorization-header redaction. The templates additionally encourage replacing a literal placeholder with a credential stored directly in source code. The placeholder itself is not a secret, but users may copy the template and insert a real token, resulting in both source-code exposure and query-string exposure. Net ...[truncated 1419 chars]
Remediation
View remediation

SkillSpector

Vulnerability Patterns
  • Data ExfiltrationExternal Transmission, Env Variable Harvesting, File System Enumeration
  • Trigger AbuseOverly Broad Trigger, Shadow Command Trigger, Keyword Baiting Trigger
  • Prompt InjectionInstruction Override, Hidden Instructions, Exfiltration Commands
  • Privilege EscalationExcessive Permissions, Sudo/Root Execution, Credential Access
  • Supply ChainUnpinned Dependencies, External Script Fetching, Obfuscated Code
Findings (16)

Vague Triggers

High
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
97% confidence
Finding

The skill's invocation rules are overly broad and directive, including phrases like 'always use this skill' for many generic web-data requests. This can cause the agent to route ordinary information-retrieval tasks into active scraping/crawling flows, increasing the chance of unnecessary external requests, policy bypass, and data collection from third-party sites without adequate user intent verification.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Missing User Warnings

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
90% confidence
Finding

The skill encourages scraping and crawling but provides no warning or gating around privacy, terms-of-service, sensitive data capture, or load/impact on target websites. In practice, this omission can lead the agent to help collect personal or restricted data, or perform large crawls without informing the user of legal and operational constraints.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
91% confidence
Finding

This code performs an outbound API request to Firecrawl and includes a target URL in the request body, meaning user-selected browsing targets are transmitted to an external service. In the context of a scraping skill, that behavior is expected, but it is still security-relevant because it can expose sensitive URLs, metadata, or extracted content to a third party.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 11)May include surrounding context.

md
API_KEY = "fc-YOUR_API_KEY"

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
91% confidence
Finding

This code performs an outbound API request to Firecrawl and includes a target URL in the request body, meaning user-selected browsing targets are transmitted to an external service. In the context of a scraping skill, that behavior is expected, but it is still security-relevant because it can expose sensitive URLs, metadata, or extracted content to a third party.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 11)May include surrounding context.

md
API_KEY = "fc-YOUR_API_KEY"

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={

Missing User Warnings

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
93% confidence
Finding

The examples send user-supplied URLs, queries, and page content to third-party scraping services without any accompanying disclosure that data leaves the local environment. In a skill explicitly meant for web extraction, this creates a real privacy and data-handling risk because operators may unknowingly forward sensitive targets, search terms, or scraped content to external vendors.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
50% confidence
Finding

Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 48)May include surrounding context.

md
API_KEY = "fc-YOUR_API_KEY"

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com",

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
50% confidence
Finding

Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 12)May include surrounding context.

md
API_KEY = "fc-YOUR_API_KEY"

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com",

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
50% confidence
Finding

Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 30)May include surrounding context.

md
API_KEY = "fc-YOUR_API_KEY"

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com",

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
50% confidence
Finding

Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 73)May include surrounding context.

md
API_KEY = "fc-YOUR_API_KEY"

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com",

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
90% confidence
Finding

The crawl example submits a site URL and crawl configuration to Firecrawl, causing external transmission of the user's chosen target and potentially large-scale content retrieval via a third-party processor. Because this skill is specifically designed to crawl websites, the behavior is intentional, but it can still leak sensitive internal or proprietary targets if used carelessly.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 34)May include surrounding context.

md
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}", "Content-Type": "application/json"}

# Start crawl
resp = requests.post(f"{BASE}/crawl", headers=HEADERS, json={
    "url": "https://docs.example.com",
    "limit": 50,
    "scrapeOptions": {"formats": ["markdown"]}

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
89% confidence
Finding

The search-and-scrape example sends search queries to Firecrawl, which may expose user intent, research topics, or potentially sensitive business queries to a third party. In a scraping/search skill this is normal functionality, but without disclosure it still presents a meaningful confidentiality issue.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 57)May include surrounding context.

Search + Scrape

python
resp = requests.post(f"{BASE}/search", headers=HEADERS, json={
    "query": "best Python web scraping libraries 2025",
    "limit": 5,
    "scrapeOptions": {"formats": ["markdown"]}

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
50% confidence
Finding

Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 124)May include surrounding context.

md
TOKEN = "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
ACTOR = "apify/google-search-scraper"
BASE = "https://api.apify.com/v2"

# Start run
resp = requests.post(

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
50% confidence
Finding

Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 113)May include surrounding context.

md
TOKEN = "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"
ACTOR = "apify/google-search-scraper"
BASE = "https://api.apify.com/v2"

# Start run
resp = requests.post(

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
90% confidence
Finding

This example starts an Apify actor run by sending query terms and configuration to Apify over the network, exposing the task inputs to an external service. The action is core to the skill's purpose, but it remains a true security concern where users may assume scraping is performed locally or may submit sensitive targets.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 116)May include surrounding context.

md
BASE = "https://api.apify.com/v2"

# Start run
resp = requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/acts/{ACTOR}/runs",
    params={"token": TOKEN},
    json={"queries": "web scraping", "maxPagesPerQuery": 1}

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
89% confidence
Finding

The synchronous Apify example transmits query data to an external API and immediately retrieves results, which can disclose user interests and scraping targets to a third party. Although expected in this skill, the lack of surrounding warning makes it a real data-sharing risk.

Content

Scanner excerpt · references/code-templates.md (reported line 140)May include surrounding context.

Synchronous Run (short jobs <5 min)

python
resp = requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/acts/{ACTOR}/run-sync-get-dataset-items",
    params={"token": TOKEN},
    json={"queries": "Jaipur restaurants", "maxPagesPerQuery": 1}

Missing User Warnings

Low
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
84% confidence
Finding

The file-writing example writes directly to results.json in overwrite mode without warning, which can destroy an existing local file and lead to unintended data loss. This is a real but low-severity safety issue because it affects local integrity rather than enabling code execution or privilege escalation.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Static analysis

No suspicious patterns detected.