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Security audit

Google News Api Skill

Security checks across malware telemetry and agentic risk

Overview

This appears to be a legitimate Google News/BrowserAct integration, but it needs review because it encourages broad automatic third-party use and unsafe API-key handling.

Install only if you are comfortable sending news search terms and task parameters to BrowserAct. Configure BROWSERACT_API_KEY through a secure environment variable or secret manager, do not paste the key into chat, and use the skill only for intentional third-party news collection.

SkillSpector

By NVIDIA
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 (2)

Vague Triggers

Medium
Confidence
89% confidence
Finding
The manifest instructs the agent to proactively apply the skill for a very broad set of common research, monitoring, and news-related tasks. This can cause over-invocation of a third-party-integrated skill, leading to unnecessary data disclosure, unintended API usage, and reduced user awareness that their query is being sent externally.

Missing User Warnings

Medium
Confidence
94% confidence
Finding
The skill description emphasizes functionality but does not clearly warn that user-provided search terms will be transmitted to BrowserAct, a third-party service. In a research and monitoring context, queries may contain sensitive corporate interests, names, investigations, or incident-related topics, so lack of disclosure creates a meaningful privacy and data-handling risk.

VirusTotal

66/66 vendors flagged this skill as clean.

View on VirusTotal