VSCode IDE forks expose users to “recommended extension” attacks

VSCode IDE forks expose users to “recommended extension” attacks Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/secu… Popular AI-powered integrated development environments (IDEs)—including Cursor, Windsurf, Google Antigravity and Trae—recommend extensions that do not exist in the OpenVSX registry. This creates an opportunity for threat actors to claim the unregistered publisher namespaces and upload malicious extensions under those names. These AI-assisted IDEs are forks of Microsoft’s VS Code but cannot use extensions from the official Visual Studio Marketplace due to licensing restrictions. Instead, they rely on OpenVSX, an open-source marketplace for VS Code-compatible extensions. Because the forks inherit VS Code’s hardcoded list of “officially recommended” extensions—configured to point to Microsoft’s marketplace—some recommendations reference extensions that are absent from OpenVSX. Where those extensions are missing, the corresponding publisher namespaces may be unclaimed, increasing the risk of namespace takeovers and malicious extension distribution.