AI coding agents' 0-click RCE flaw could hand attackers keys to the kingdom
A zero-click remote code execution vulnerability known as Plugin4Shell affects major AI coding agents by exploiting flaws in their plugin marketplace security. The attack allows malicious code to be injected through trusted marketplaces, potentially granting attackers full access to sensitive data and assets. While some vendors have patched the issue, others remain vulnerable or have deprecated affected tools without providing a direct fix.
- ▪Plugin4Shell is a supply-chain attack that targets the SHA-pinning mechanism used by AI coding agents to verify plugin integrity.
- ▪Anthropic and OpenAI have released patches for Claude Code and Codex, respectively, to mitigate the vulnerability.
- ▪Google has deprecated the Gemini CLI and advises users to migrate to its Antigravity environment, leaving existing installations vulnerable.
- ▪Microsoft has not patched the flaw in Copilot, and researchers argue that GitHub's current mitigations are insufficient for other platforms like Bitbucket.
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| Original publisher | The Register |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/09/17/ai-coding-agents-0-click-rce-flaw-could-hand-attackers-keys-to-the-kingdom/5297335 |
| Publication time | Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:42:29 +0200 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-18T01:08:44.635Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-18T01:08:44.635Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | YVS2eJU5JrVo · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); security AI coding agents' 0-click RCE flaw could hand attackers keys to the kingdom Plugin4Shell attack affects all the major coding agents, researchers say Jessica Lyons Jessica Lyons Cybersecurity Editor Published thu 17 Sep 2026 // 23:42 UTC READ MORE Scientific papers become agentic chatbots with new tool 7 hours ago Grassroots coalition asks politicians to choose voters over Big AI's $140M machine 9 hours ago AI model watermarking changes agent behavior 10 hours ago Microsoft AI…
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