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Security audit

journalist-media-research

Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk

Overview

This skill is a disclosed media-research helper that sends user-directed journalist, news, and scrape queries to Crawlora and does not show hidden persistence, local data access, or destructive behavior.

Install only if you are comfortable using Crawlora as an external service for media research. Treat search terms, target URLs, and journalist queries as data sent to Crawlora, and keep the Crawlora API key private in the environment.

A.I.G

Vulnerability Patterns
  • 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
  • Unauthorized Access and Privilege EscalationObtains permissions beyond the task's legitimate needs

SkillSpector

Vulnerability Patterns
  • Data ExfiltrationExternal Transmission, Env Variable Harvesting, File System Enumeration
  • Privilege EscalationExcessive Permissions, Sudo/Root Execution, Credential Access
  • MCP Least PrivilegeUnderdeclared Capability, Wildcard Permission, Missing Permission Declaration
  • Prompt InjectionInstruction Override, Hidden Instructions, Exfiltration Commands
  • Supply ChainUnpinned Dependencies, External Script Fetching, Obfuscated Code
Findings (9)

Lp3

Medium
Category
MCP Least Privilege
Confidence
91% confidence
Finding
The skill invokes a shell script (`scripts/crawlora.sh`) but does not declare any explicit tool scope or allowed tools. That creates an authorization gap: an agent/runtime may permit shell execution more broadly than intended, increasing the chance of unexpected command execution or unsafe composition with user-controlled inputs.

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Content
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Crawlora REST helper — minimal, dependency-free (curl only).
# Calls https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1 with your Crawlora API key.
# Get a free key (2,000 credits/mo, no card) at https://crawlora.net?utm_source=github&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=crawlora-skills.
#
Confidence
70% confidence
Finding
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Content
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Crawlora REST helper — minimal, dependency-free (curl only).
# Calls https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1 with your Crawlora API key.
# Get a free key (2,000 credits/mo, no card) at https://crawlora.net?utm_source=github&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=crawlora-skills.
#
# Usage:
Confidence
60% confidence
Finding
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Content
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Crawlora REST helper — minimal, dependency-free (curl only).
# Calls https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1 with your Crawlora API key.
# Get a free key (2,000 credits/mo, no card) at https://crawlora.net?utm_source=github&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=crawlora-skills.
#
# Usage:
Confidence
60% confidence
Finding
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Content
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Crawlora REST helper — minimal, dependency-free (curl only).
# Calls https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1 with your Crawlora API key.
# Get a free key (2,000 credits/mo, no card) at https://crawlora.net?utm_source=github&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=crawlora-skills.
#
# Usage:
Confidence
60% confidence
Finding
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Content
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Crawlora REST helper — minimal, dependency-free (curl only).
# Calls https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1 with your Crawlora API key.
# Get a free key (2,000 credits/mo, no card) at https://crawlora.net?utm_source=github&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=crawlora-skills.
#
# Usage:
Confidence
60% confidence
Finding
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

Sudo/Root Execution

Medium
Category
Privilege Escalation
Content
# Keep the API key out of the curl process command line. A private temporary
# config supplies the header and is removed automatically on exit.
curl_config="$(mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/crawlora-curl.XXXXXX")"
chmod 600 "$curl_config"
trap 'rm -f "$curl_config"' EXIT
printf 'header = "x-api-key: %s"\n' "$CRAWLORA_API_KEY" >"$curl_config"
auth=(--config "$curl_config")
Confidence
80% confidence
Finding
Commands invoke sudo or root privileges. Verify this elevated access is necessary and justified.

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Content
[ -n "$body" ] || body='{}'
  # Stream the body on stdin so curl never interprets a user value as its
  # @file shorthand (and cannot read local files supplied in a request body).
  printf '%s' "$body" | curl -fsS -X "$method" "${auth[@]}" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data-binary @- "${base}${path}"
fi
Confidence
70% confidence
Finding
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.

Natural-Language Policy Violations

Low
Confidence
91% confidence
Finding
The Bing endpoint descriptions state that locale defaults to country=us and lang=en-us. This imposes a specific language/locale by default in natural-language documentation, and the text does not direct the caller to obtain user choice before using those defaults.

Static analysis

No suspicious patterns detected.