T05 · Unauthorized Access and Privilege Escalation
- Location
SKILL.md:17- Finding
Unnecessary Command Execution Capability and Privilege-Elevation Guidance
- Content
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Vulnerability Details
File Location:
SKILL.md, lines 17-19; supporting instructions at lines 225, 240, 243-244, 341-342, 385, and 407
Vulnerability Type: Excessive tool permissions and unsafe privilege-elevation guidance
Risk Level: MediumEvidence
The Skill declares unrestricted command execution despite describing a workflow that primarily transforms supplied text:
yaml tools: - read - execSupporting instructions state that the Skill requires command-line execution for file reading, file writing, and command invocation. The troubleshooting guidance at lines 385 and 407 also recommends running with administrator privileges when file permissions are insufficient.
Technical Analysis
The documented core functions—content scoring, FAQ generation, summary generation, and JSON-LD construction—do not inherently require arbitrary operating-system command execution. Nevertheless, the Skill requests the broad
execcapability without defining:- An allowlist of permitted commands
- Argument or input validation
- Filesystem path restrictions
- A mandatory non-privileged sandbox
- User confirmation before command execution
- A concrete implementation that justifies command access
This violates the principle of least privilege. If untrusted article content, filenames, command parameters, or later instructions influence an agent's tool use, the broad capability could expose the host to arbitrary commands under the agent's operating-system identity.
The recommendation to run as an administrator compounds this risk. It encourages expanding privileges instead of correcting file ownership, narrowing the required paths, or using a dedicated workspace. The document does not itself execute commands or contain a malicious payload, so exploitation depends on an agent translating these broad instructions into unsafe tool calls.
Attack Path
- A user or external source supplies attacker-contr ...[truncated 1591 chars]
- Remediation
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Remediation Suggestions
- Remove
execfrom the declared tools because the documented content-transformation workflow can be performed through text processing. - Retain
readonly if local document access is essential, and restrict it to an explicit project workspace. - Remove all recommendations to run the agent as an administrator. Resolve permission errors through correct ownership, narrowly scoped access controls, or a dedicated non-privileged workspace.
- If command execution is genuinely required, document every permitted executable and fixed argument pattern rather than authorizing generic shell commands.
- Invoke executables directly without a shell, and never concatenate user-controlled content, filenames, titles, or paths into command strings.
- Canonicalize and validate paths before access; reject absolute paths, traversal sequences, symbolic-link escapes, and paths outside the designated workspace.
- Require explicit user approval for each command, file write, external request, or operation outside the content-processing workflow.
- Run commands in a non-privileged sandbox with minimal filesystem mounts, restricted environment variables, network access disabled by default, resource limits, and execution timeouts.
- Prevent child processes from inheriting API keys or unrelated credentials. Pass only the minimum environment variables needed for a specific operation.
- Add security tests covering shell metacharacters, malicious filenames, path traversal, symbolic links, permission failures, and attempts to access files outside the workspace.
- Remove