Security audit

Reddit Archive

Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk

Overview

This Reddit archiving skill mostly does what it says, but it reads local browser login cookies by default to download Reddit videos.

Install only if you are comfortable with yt-dlp reading cookies from your local browser profile. Use REDDIT_COOKIES_BROWSER=none for image-only or non-Reddit-video archives, consider a separate browser profile or Reddit account for downloads, and pin dependency versions before using it in a repeatable or sensitive environment.

SkillSpector

Vulnerability Patterns

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

Findings (7)

Context-Inappropriate Capability

Medium

Confidence: 97% confidence
Finding: The script is designed to pull browser-derived Reddit cookies via yt-dlp's --cookies-from-browser option in order to access media. Even if intended to make authenticated downloads work, this introduces credential-access behavior not clearly disclosed by the tool's primary purpose and expands trust from public scraping to local session extraction.

Missing User Warnings

Medium

Confidence: 94% confidence
Finding: The skill explicitly instructs users to remain logged into Reddit and says the script will automatically load browser cookies for yt-dlp, but it does not clearly warn that this accesses authenticated browser session data and may expose account-scoped access to a third-party downloader. Even if intended for legitimate video access, silent or underexplained cookie use increases the risk of credential misuse, overcollection, or accidental disclosure in logs/process arguments.

Missing User Warnings

Medium

Confidence: 98% confidence
Finding: The code silently enables reading cookies from a local browser profile unless the environment variable disables it, which means users may trigger local session access without an explicit consent flow. In a tool marketed as an archive/downloader, hidden credential use is a meaningful security and privacy concern even if the cookies are intended only for authenticated Reddit access.

Unpinned Dependencies

Low

Category: Supply Chain
Content: requests yt-dlp
Confidence: 97% confidence
Finding: The dependency 'requests' is unpinned, so installs may resolve to different versions over time, including versions with known security flaws or breaking changes. This weakens build reproducibility and increases supply-chain risk because a future install could silently pull a vulnerable or compromised release.

Unpinned Dependencies

Low

Category: Supply Chain
Content: requests yt-dlp
Confidence: 97% confidence
Finding: The dependency 'yt-dlp' is unpinned, allowing arbitrary future versions to be installed. Because this package has had security advisories, leaving it unpinned increases the chance of pulling a vulnerable release or an unexpected upstream change that expands attack surface.

Known Vulnerable Dependency: requests — 10 advisory(ies): CVE-2014-1830 (Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor in Requests); CVE-2024-47081 (Requests vulnerable to .netrc credentials leak via malicious URLs); CVE-2024-35195 (Requests `Session` object does not verify requests after making first request wi) +7 more

High

Category: Supply Chain
Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: The file specifies 'requests' without a version, and the scanner reports multiple known advisories affecting that dependency family. Without pinning to a patched release, deployments may install a vulnerable version, potentially enabling credential leakage, TLS verification issues, or other request-handling weaknesses depending on usage.

Known Vulnerable Dependency: yt-dlp — 7 advisory(ies): CVE-2023-46121 (yt-dlp Generic Extractor MITM Vulnerability via Arbitrary Proxy Injection); GHSA-3v33-3wmw-3785 (yt-dlp has dependency on potentially malicious third-party code in Douyu extract); CVE-2023-40581 ( yt-dlp on Windows vulnerable to `--exec` command injection when using `%q`) +4 more

High

Category: Supply Chain
Confidence: 94% confidence
Finding: The inclusion of 'yt-dlp' with no version constraint is risky because the package has multiple published security advisories, including issues that can lead to command injection or unsafe network behavior in certain contexts. If this skill processes untrusted media URLs or metadata, exploitation could have serious consequences on the host running the agent.

Static analysis

No suspicious patterns detected.