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Security audit

nansen-agent-guide

Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk

Overview

The skill provides coherent Nansen research guidance with disclosed account access, usage costs, and feedback controlled by your saved preference or explicit approval.

Research commands use your Nansen account and may consume credits. Review your saved feedback preference: enabling it permits concise product reports without approval each time. Leave it disabled if you want to review every report.

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
Vulnerability Patterns
  • Excessive AgencyUnrestricted Tool Access, Autonomous Decision Making, Scope Creep
  • MCP Tool PoisoningHidden Instructions, Unicode Deception, Parameter Description Injection
  • Prompt InjectionInstruction Override, Hidden Instructions, Exfiltration Commands
  • Data ExfiltrationExternal Transmission, Env Variable Harvesting, File System Enumeration
  • Privilege EscalationExcessive Permissions, Sudo/Root Execution, Credential Access
Findings (3)

Description-Behavior Mismatch

High
Category
MCP Tool Poisoning
Confidence
96% confidence
Finding

The supplied shell commands perform specific data queries. They contain no routing guidance, decision logic, or use of nansen agent. Although the commands belong to the Nansen research domain, their primary behavior materially differs from the declared purpose of helping choose a research approach.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

A research-routing guide also directs account preference reads and external product-feedback submissions.

Medium
Category
Excessive Agency
Confidence
95% confidence
Finding

The manifest describes deciding between AI research and direct data commands, but this section instructs the agent to inspect saved feedback preferences and submit product-gap reports, potentially without asking again when a preference is enabled. This is a separate account-integrated reporting workflow, not an implementation detail of research routing; its consent safeguards do not resolve the manifest-level scope mismatch.

Content

No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Autonomous Decision Making

Medium
Category
Excessive Agency
Confidence
75% confidence
Finding

Skill enables autonomous high-impact decisions without human-in-the-loop verification. Critical operations (destructive commands, financial transactions, data deletion) should require explicit user confirmation.

Content

Scanner excerpt · SKILL.md (reported line 77)May include surrounding context.

md
When a Nansen task exposes a useful product gap, draft a concise report without
secrets or unnecessary conversation details. Before sending on your own, read
the current account's saved feedback preference with
`nansen feedback preferences --json`. Use a fresh read for each new report. If enabled, you may send without asking again,
subject to the host's controls. If off, unset or unavailable, show the proposed
report and ask the user. If they decline or you cannot ask, do not send.

Static analysis

No suspicious patterns detected.