T05 · Unauthorized Access and Privilege Escalation
- Location
SKILL.md:19- Finding
Overprivileged Tool Access and Unsafe Elevation Guidance
- Content
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Vulnerability Details
File Location:
SKILL.md, lines 19–23; supporting guidance at lines 259–261 and 274
Vulnerability Type: T05: Unauthorized Access and Privilege Escalation
Risk Level: MediumVulnerable Code Snippet
yaml tools: - read - exec - glob - grepThe later documentation also claims support for arbitrary file processing and system-command execution. At line 274, its generic response to insufficient permissions is to check permissions and run with administrator privileges.
Technical Analysis
The skill requests filesystem discovery, filesystem reading, content searching, and command-execution tools despite providing no executable implementation, command allowlist, path restrictions, or concrete justification for why unrestricted local execution is necessary for multi-source research.
Combining
glob,grep, andreadcan expose files outside the intended research workspace, including configuration files and locally stored credentials, if the hosting Agent does not impose separate boundaries. Theexeccapability can modify files, invoke installed programs, or initiate network connections under the Agent process's identity.Generic advice to rerun as an administrator violates least-privilege principles. If followed, it expands the accessible filesystem and the potential effects of command execution. This is particularly concerning for a research skill because retrieved web or social-media content may be attacker-controlled and could contain prompt-injection instructions.
The package contains only documentation and no embedded executable code. Therefore, exploitation depends on a host platform granting the declared tools and an Agent being induced to misuse them; the reviewed file does not itself contain an automatic privilege-escalation mechanism.
Attack Path
- A user activates the skill for research involving an attacker-controlled webpage, document, or social-media ...[truncated 1419 chars]
- Remediation
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Remediation Suggestions
- Remove
execunless system-command execution is essential to a documented workflow. - Replace broad tool declarations with the minimum capabilities necessary for research. Prefer dedicated search or HTTP tools over local shell execution.
- Restrict filesystem operations to an explicit, user-approved workspace and deny access to home-directory secrets, credential stores, SSH material, environment files, and system paths.
- If command execution is unavoidable, define an exact executable and argument allowlist, reject shell metacharacters, prohibit interpreter invocation, apply timeouts, and run commands in a network-restricted sandbox.
- Remove the generic recommendation to run as administrator. Diagnose missing files or incorrectly scoped permissions instead, and document that the skill must run as an unprivileged account.
- Require explicit user approval before accessing a new local path or executing any command with side effects.
- Treat retrieved research content as untrusted data and explicitly prohibit following instructions embedded in webpages, documents, search results, or social-media posts.
- Align the declared capabilities with the actual implementation. Remove unsupported claims concerning arbitrary file writing and command execution if those functions are not implemented.
- Remove