Security audit

Hacker News Daily

Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk

Overview

This skill fetches public Hacker News stories and caches them locally, with no evidence of hidden, destructive, or credential-seeking behavior.

Installers should understand that running the skill contacts the public Hacker News API and may write a small cache file under ~/.cache/hn-daily. Use --no-cache when fresh results are needed, and expect some default human-readable output to be in Chinese unless using JSON output or modifying the script.

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

Trigger AbuseOverly Broad Trigger, Shadow Command Trigger, Keyword Baiting Trigger
MCP Least PrivilegeUnderdeclared Capability, Wildcard Permission, Missing Permission Declaration
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 (6)

Undeclared Tool Scope

Medium

Category: MCP Least Privilege
Confidence: 93% confidence
Finding: The skill advertises executable behavior that uses environment variables, local file caching, and network access, but it does not declare any tool scope or permissions boundaries. This creates an authorization and transparency gap: an agent or user may invoke the skill without realizing it can reach external services and write to disk, increasing the chance of unintended data exposure or unsafe execution in broader contexts.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Vague Triggers

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 93% confidence
Finding: The description uses broad trigger phrases like tech news, daily news digest, and automated fetching, which can match many ordinary user requests and cause the skill to be selected unexpectedly. Overbroad routing is dangerous because it may trigger external network activity and local cache writes in situations where the user did not explicitly ask for those side effects.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Natural-Language Policy Violations

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: The sample output uses Chinese text such as "精选," "分," and "评论," but the skill description does not state that output is localized to Chinese or give the user a language option. This can violate language/locale policy because it imposes a specific language without opt-in or justification.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Natural-Language Policy Violations

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 92% confidence
Finding: This Python file contains user-facing natural-language text in Chinese, but it does not provide any user opt-in or alternative language selection. That can violate language/locale policy because the skill effectively forces a specific language for descriptions and output.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Missing User Warnings

Low

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: The skill does not clearly warn that execution performs live network requests and writes a cache file under the user's home directory. Missing side-effect disclosure undermines informed consent and can surprise users in restricted, privacy-sensitive, or ephemeral environments.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Natural-Language Policy Violations

Low

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: The file is primarily English documentation, but the embedded Python example includes Chinese docstrings and comments such as '获取Top Stories', '获取单个Story详情', and '使用示例'. This imposes a specific language choice in the skill content without offering user choice or documenting a locale-specific reason, which matches the language policy violation criteria.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Static analysis

No suspicious patterns detected.