A few weeks ago, I came across an interesting security vulnerability inside Google Cloud Shell. While analyzing how Cloud Shell Editor (Code OSS) loads projects, I observed that simply opening a specially crafted project within the editor triggers silent and automatic code execution. The user doesn't need to type any commands, or run any tasks manually. Simply open the project and the payload will be executed.
The root cause was that many components/processes executes inside the Cloud Shell Editor during workspace load. Tools like the Gradle language server, the Clang language server, and the VS Code tasks system evaluate config files or build scripts as soon as the folder is opened. This seems simple in a normal development workflow, but it breaks a very basic assumption/principle we all rely on: cloning a repo or opening a project in an editor will never execute a command without user action.
I understood this behavior, the attack scenario was