T03 · Remote Payload Retrieval and Execution
Error
- Location
- SKILL.md:170
- Finding
- Remote Swarm Governance Can Trigger Autonomous Execution of Untrusted Code Diffs<![CDATA[ ## Vulnerability Details **File Location**: `SKILL.md`, lines 170-178; related sandbox limitation at line 350 **Vulnerability Type**: Remote payload retrieval and autonomous code execution **Risk Level**: Critical ### Vulnerable Code Snippet ```markdown python cli.py vote --proposal-id=abc123 --voter=my_agent --vote=approve --reason="Improves system resilience" --signature="base64-signature" ``` **Vote options:** `approve`, `reject`, `abstain` The proposal executes automatically if: - ✅ Total approve trust ≥ 60% of swarm total trust - ✅ ≥ 3 distinct voters participated - ✅ Voting period not expired (7 days) ``` The documented limitation confirms that the execution environment does not provide a genuine security boundary: ```markdown - ⚠️ **AutonomousExecutor uses regex sandbox:** not true Docker isolation ``` ### Technical Analysis The skill delegates approval of executable code changes to participants in an externally hosted swarm. Once the trust-weighted voting conditions are met, an approved code diff is executed automatically. Cryptographic signatures establish which swarm identities submitted actions, but they do not establish that the submitted code is safe. Likewise, quorum requirements are governance controls rather than code-execution security controls. An attacker who compromises trusted identities, colludes with sufficiently trusted participants, or otherwise obtains enough voting influence could authorize a malicious proposal. The documented regex-based sandbox is not adequate for arbitrary code isolation. Pattern matching cannot comprehensively prevent indirect operating-system access, unsafe imports, dynamic evaluation, reflection, encoding-based bypasses, resource exhaustion, or exploitation of permitted runtime functionality. Because the audited project contains only `SKILL.md`, the implementation of the dry run, signature verification, diff validation, and executor cannot be independently verified. ### Attack Path 1. An att ...[truncated 1402 chars]
- Remediation
- <![CDATA[ ## Remediation Suggestions 1. Remove automatic execution of remotely proposed code changes. 2. Require explicit local approval by an authorized human or independently trusted administrator before any proposal is applied. 3. Separate proposal approval from deployment authority; swarm consensus should never directly confer operating-system execution rights. 4. Display the complete diff, affected files, artifact digest, proposer identity, and security-analysis results during approval. 5. Permit changes only to an explicit allowlist of files and reject modifications to executors, authentication code, governance thresholds, startup configuration, dependency manifests, and secret-handling logic without elevated review. 6. Replace the regex sandbox with a disposable VM or strongly isolated container that has: - No host filesystem mounts. - No inherited credentials or environment secrets. - No network access by default. - A read-only base image. - A non-root user and dropped Linux capabilities. - Seccomp, AppArmor, or SELinux confinement. - Strict CPU, memory, process, storage, and execution-time limits. 7. Require reproducible builds and cryptographically pin the reviewed proposal digest to the executed artifact. 8. Run static analysis, dependency scanning, tests, and policy checks before execution, but do not treat these checks as substitutes for isolation. 9. Add rate limits, resource quotas, immutable audit logs, emergency shutdown controls, and rollback support. 10. Document and test the behavior for compromised voters, malicious proposals, race conditions, and sandbox escapes. ]]>