T05 · Unauthorized Access and Privilege Escalation
- Location
SKILL.md:5- Finding
Unnecessary General Command Execution Capability
- Content
View full analysis
Vulnerability Details
File Location:
SKILL.md:5
Vulnerability Type: Excessive tool permissions violating least privilege
Risk Level: Mediumyaml allowed-tools: read execTechnical Analysis
The skill grants the agent access to the general-purpose
exectool even though its declared core functions are limited to generating social-media calendars, drafts, content pillars, and hashtag strategies. These text-generation operations do not inherently require local command execution.General command execution materially expands the skill's authority beyond its legitimate requirements. If untrusted content or prompt-injection text influences the agent while this skill is active, the unnecessary
execpermission could provide a path from instruction manipulation to operating-system command execution.The reviewed file does not directly instruct the agent to execute a malicious command, retrieve a payload, access credentials, or establish persistence. Exploitation therefore depends on a separate instruction-manipulation vector and on the behavior of the hosting agent. The vulnerability is the excessive permission boundary rather than evidence of an embedded malicious payload.
Attack Path
- The host loads the skill and grants the tools declared by
allowed-tools. - The agent receives untrusted social-media content, copied source material, or another input containing adversarial instructions.
- The adversarial instructions attempt to redirect the agent from content generation to invoking the available
exectool. - If the host does not independently enforce command restrictions or require user confirmation, the agent may execute a local command with the privileges of the agent process.
- The resulting access is limited by the operating-system account, sandbox, filesystem permissions, and network controls applied to that process.
Impact Assessment
Successful exploitation could permit co ...[truncated 567 chars]
- The host loads the skill and grants the tools declared by
- Remediation
View remediation
Remediation Suggestions
- Remove
execfromallowed-toolsand retain only the minimum tools required for text generation:yaml allowed-tools: read - Reclassify the skill as Markdown-only rather than command-execution capable.
- Replace command-based network troubleshooting with a message directing users to verify connectivity outside the skill.
- If command execution is later required for a legitimate feature, expose narrowly scoped operations instead of unrestricted shell access.
- Require explicit user approval before any command runs, apply an executable and argument allowlist, and reject shell metacharacters or dynamically constructed commands.
- Run the agent in a restricted sandbox with minimal filesystem access, no unnecessary credentials in environment variables, and deny-by-default network access.
- Remove
