Security audit

Zhihu Answer List API

Security checks across malware telemetry and agentic risk

Overview

This is a narrow Zhihu API wrapper, but it handles the API token in ways that can expose it through command arguments and request URLs.

Review before installing. Use only in a trusted local environment, avoid logging full commands or request URLs, and prefer a revised version that reads the token from a secure source and sends it in an Authorization or API-key header if the provider supports it. Rotate the token if it may have appeared in logs.

SkillSpector

By NVIDIA

Vulnerability Patterns

Data ExfiltrationExternal Transmission, Env Variable Harvesting, File System Enumeration
Prompt InjectionInstruction Override, Hidden Instructions, Exfiltration Commands
Privilege EscalationExcessive Permissions, Sudo/Root Execution, Credential Access
Supply ChainUnpinned Dependencies, External Script Fetching, Obfuscated Code
Excessive AgencyUnrestricted Tool Access, Autonomous Decision Making, Scope Creep

Findings (3)

Missing User Warnings

Medium

Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: The skill requires the API token to be sent as the `token` query parameter, which causes the secret to be embedded in the URL. Query-string secrets are commonly exposed via logs, browser/history storage, proxy and CDN logs, monitoring systems, and error reporting, making accidental credential disclosure more likely even when HTTPS is used. In this skill's context, the risk is elevated because the script explicitly injects the token into request parameters and then appends all query parameters to the URL without any warning or alternative authentication mechanism.

Missing User Warnings

Medium

Confidence: 98% confidence
Finding: The API token is required as a query parameter, which is unsafe because query strings are commonly exposed in browser history, intermediary logs, analytics systems, reverse proxies, and monitoring tools. Even when sent over HTTPS, placing credentials in the URL increases the chance of accidental disclosure and replay by anyone who gains access to those records.

Missing User Warnings

Medium

Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: The API documentation requires a sensitive `token` to be passed as a query parameter but provides no warning about secure handling, logging exposure, or privacy implications. Query parameters are commonly captured in browser history, proxy logs, analytics, and server access logs, which increases the chance of credential leakage and unauthorized API use.

VirusTotal

64/64 vendors flagged this skill as clean.

View on VirusTotal

Static analysis

Detected: suspicious.secret_argv_exposure

Instructions pass high-value credentials through process argv.

Critical

Code: suspicious.secret_argv_exposure
Location: SKILL.md:46