Security audit

Timezone

Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk

Overview

This skill is advertised as a timezone converter, but its executable behavior is mainly a local logger for arbitrary user input rather than timezone conversion.

Review before installing. Do not enter confidential meeting details, names, locations, or business context unless you are comfortable with them being saved under ~/.local/share/timezone and later searchable or exportable. There is no evidence of network exfiltration or destructive behavior, but the skill does not match its advertised timezone purpose and lacks basic controls for its local history.

A.I.G

Vulnerability Patterns

Skill Instruction HijackingAlters the agent's session goals or safety constraints when the skill loads
Agent Memory PoisoningWrites attacker-controlled rules into memory that affect later sessions
Remote Payload Retrieval and ExecutionFetches external code whose behavior can change after review
Embedded Malicious CodeShips malicious scripts inside the skill and executes them locally
Unauthorized Access and Privilege EscalationObtains permissions beyond the task's legitimate needs

SkillSpector

Vulnerability Patterns

Data ExfiltrationExternal Transmission, Env Variable Harvesting, File System Enumeration
Excessive AgencyUnrestricted Tool Access, Autonomous Decision Making, Scope Creep
Trigger AbuseOverly Broad Trigger, Shadow Command Trigger, Keyword Baiting Trigger
MCP Tool PoisoningHidden Instructions, Unicode Deception, Parameter Description Injection
Prompt InjectionInstruction Override, Hidden Instructions, Exfiltration Commands

Findings (11)

Tp4

High

Category: MCP Tool Poisoning
Confidence: 99% confidence
Finding: The skill is presented as a timezone conversion utility, but the documentation advertises broad logging, storage, search, export, stats, and generic command capabilities unrelated to timezone conversion. This creates a trust-boundary problem: users may provide sensitive scheduling or free-form inputs to what appears to be a narrow utility, while the skill persists and repurposes that data locally without a clearly justified need.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Intent-Code Divergence

High

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 98% confidence
Finding: The help text promises actions like convert, compare, export, and status, but many corresponding branches merely log the supplied input instead of performing the advertised function. This deceptive interface materially increases risk because it can trick users into entering operational or sensitive data while hiding that the real behavior is surveillance and recordkeeping.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Description-Behavior Mismatch

High

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 99% confidence
Finding: The skill advertises timezone conversion/comparison but the implementation primarily captures arbitrary user input and stores it in persistent local logs across many commands. This mismatch is dangerous because users may provide sensitive scheduling details, locations, meeting info, or other text under the false belief that it is being processed transiently for timezone conversion, turning the skill into a covert data collection mechanism.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Vague Triggers

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 93% confidence
Finding: The description says to use the skill for broad actions like "checking offsets," "comparing zones," and "generating tables" without defining specific trigger phrases, boundaries, or exclusions. In a markdown skill file, this creates an ambiguous activation scope and increases the chance of unintended invocation from ordinary user requests.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Description-Behavior Mismatch

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: The documentation describes a timezone tool but exposes a substantially broader local data-management surface, including logging, export, search, stats, and reports. Even if no remote exfiltration is shown, this mismatch can mislead users into disclosing or processing data under false assumptions about scope and retention.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Context-Inappropriate Capability

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: Automatic history and activity logging is unnecessary for a simple timezone conversion skill and introduces privacy risk by retaining user inputs and usage metadata. Meeting details, names, locations, or business context entered during conversions could be stored without users reasonably expecting persistence.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Context-Inappropriate Capability

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 94% confidence
Finding: Persistent storage plus export, search, and reporting capabilities broaden the skill from a converter into a local data collection tool. These features increase the chance that sensitive user-entered content can be retained, enumerated, and copied elsewhere, compounding privacy and accidental disclosure risk.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Missing User Warnings

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 91% confidence
Finding: The skill mentions automatic logging but does not clearly warn users that their inputs and activity may persist on disk. Lack of meaningful notice undermines informed consent and can expose sensitive scheduling or contextual data to later local access, backup propagation, or accidental sharing.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Context-Inappropriate Capability

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 95% confidence
Finding: The script implements a generic local datastore with search, export, stats, and recent-history features that exceed the stated purpose of a timezone utility. These capabilities facilitate indexing and extracting previously entered user data, increasing the risk that sensitive information can be collected, browsed, and exfiltrated later even though such storage is not necessary for timezone conversion.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Missing User Warnings

Medium

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 94% confidence
Finding: User-supplied input is written verbatim to persistent files under the user's home directory without notice, consent, minimization, or retention controls. Even if not exfiltrated, this can expose confidential meeting details, names, email addresses, or other data to local compromise, backups, shared environments, or later export/search operations.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Intent-Code Divergence

Low

Category: Not specified by scanner
Confidence: 81% confidence
Finding: The heading and manifest identify the skill as a timezone assistant, but L013 broadens the purpose to managing all utility-tool needs from the command line. That wording conflicts with the narrower timezone-specific intent and suggests a materially different scope.
Content: No source excerpt is available for this finding.

Static analysis

No suspicious patterns detected.