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Security audit

Apify YouTube Email Scraper

Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk

Overview

This skill does what it says, but it enables YouTube contact/email scraping through a third-party service with broad activation wording and weak credential/privacy safeguards.

Review before installing. Only use this for lawful collection of public business contact information, avoid bulk unsolicited outreach, and do not run it for generic YouTube research unless you explicitly want contact extraction. Use a dedicated least-privileged Apify token, prefer Authorization headers instead of token query parameters, and treat returned email datasets as sensitive contact data.

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 (1)

T09 · Insecure Skill Coding Practices

Warning
Location
SKILL.md:52
Finding

Apify API Token Exposed Through URL Query Parameters

Content
View full analysis
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 (9)

Vague Triggers

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
96% confidence
Finding

The trigger phrases are broad enough to match common requests about YouTube research, outreach, and channel discovery, which can cause the skill to activate in situations where the user did not clearly ask for contact scraping. In this skill's context, over-broad activation is risky because the capability performs third-party data collection and can steer benign discovery requests into email harvesting workflows.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Missing User Warnings

Medium
Category
Not specified by scanner
Confidence
97% confidence
Finding

The skill is explicitly designed to collect contact information and email addresses for outreach and lead generation, but it provides no safeguards around privacy, consent, lawful basis, or anti-spam use. In this context, omission of such warnings makes misuse more likely and normalizes bulk harvesting of personal contact data from third-party profiles.

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 54)May include surrounding context.

md
import requests, os, time

TOKEN = os.environ["APIFY_API_TOKEN"]
BASE = "https://api.apify.com/v2"

# Step 1: Start the run
response = requests.post(

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
92% confidence
Finding

This code sends user-supplied search terms and extracted channel-contact workflow inputs to an external Apify actor, creating a real third-party data transmission path. The danger is increased because the actor's purpose is contact extraction, so potentially sensitive targeting criteria or collected contact data may be processed outside the local environment without any disclosure or minimization guidance.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 57)May include surrounding context.

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

# Step 1: Start the run
response = requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/acts/futurizerush~youtube-email-scraper/runs?token={TOKEN}",
    json={
        "inputMode": "keywordSearch",

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
91% confidence
Finding

The direct URL mode transmits a list of specified YouTube channels to an external service for contact extraction. While this is core functionality, it is still a genuine data egress path to a third party and can expose user targeting lists or investigative intent without any warning, approval gate, or handling constraints.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 99)May include surrounding context.

Direct channel URLs

python
requests.post(
    f"{BASE}/acts/futurizerush~youtube-email-scraper/runs?token={TOKEN}",
    json={
        "inputMode": "directUrls",

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
94% confidence
Finding

The bash example performs the same third-party transmission and also places the API token directly in the request URL, which increases the chance of credential exposure through shell history, logs, process inspection, or proxy logging. In a scraping skill, that combination of credential-in-URL plus bulk contact extraction makes misuse and accidental leakage more consequential.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 115)May include surrounding context.

bash
# Step 1: Start the run
RUN_RESPONSE=$(curl -s -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/futurizerush~youtube-email-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"inputMode": "keywordSearch", "searchKeywords": ["AI automation"], "maxChannelsPerKeyword": 10, "maxResults": 10}')

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
93% confidence
Finding

This bash POST example transmits data to a third-party service and embeds the API token in the URL, creating a practical credential exposure risk in addition to ordinary data egress. Because the skill's purpose is harvesting contact details, this external transmission supports a potentially privacy-invasive workflow and warrants explicit safeguards.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 116)May include surrounding context.

bash
# Step 1: Start the run
RUN_RESPONSE=$(curl -s -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/futurizerush~youtube-email-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"inputMode": "keywordSearch", "searchKeywords": ["AI automation"], "maxChannelsPerKeyword": 10, "maxResults": 10}')

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
90% confidence
Finding

Polling the run status is an external transmission to Apify and includes the API token in the URL, which can expose the credential in logs or monitoring systems. The payload is low sensitivity compared with the scrape request itself, but the token handling pattern is still unsafe and should be corrected.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 125)May include surrounding context.

md
# Step 2: Poll until done
while true; do
  STATUS=$(curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/$RUN_ID?token=$APIFY_API_TOKEN" \
    | jq -r '.data.status')
  [ "$STATUS" = "SUCCEEDED" ] && break
  [ "$STATUS" = "FAILED" ] || [ "$STATUS" = "ABORTED" ] && echo "Failed: $STATUS" && exit 1

External Transmission

Medium
Category
Data Exfiltration
Confidence
93% confidence
Finding

Fetching dataset items from Apify retrieves the extracted results, which in this skill include email addresses and other contact information, and again uses token-in-URL authentication. This creates both data egress and sensitive result retrieval risks, especially if command output, URLs, or logs are retained in shared environments.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 133)May include surrounding context.

done

Step 3: Fetch results

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/$DATASET_ID/items?token=$APIFY_API_TOKEN" | jq '.'

text

## Output Format

Static analysis

No suspicious patterns detected.