On September 5, Cointelegraph reported that cybersecurity firm HiddenLayer reported a "CopyPasta license attack" vulnerability in the AI programming tool Cursor, widely used by cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Coinbase. Hackers could exploit this vulnerability by hiding malicious instructions in the LICENSE.txt and README.md files, tricking the AI tool into injecting the vulnerability into the codebase.
The attack exploits hidden prompt injection within Markdown comments, allowing AI to automatically deliver malicious payloads when editing files. Testing has revealed vulnerabilities in AI programming tools such as Windsurf, Kiro, and Aider. The malicious code can create backdoors, steal sensitive data, or crash systems, and can be deeply hidden to avoid detection.
