VSCode extensions with 9 million installs pulled over security risks

Microsoft has removed two popular VSCode extensions, 'Material Theme – Free' and  'Material Theme Icons – Free,' from the Visual Studio Marketplace for allegedly containing malicious code. The two extensions are very popular, having been downloaded nearly 9 million times in total, with users now receiving alerts in VSCode that the extensions have automatically been disabled. The publisher, Mattia Astorino (aka equinusocio), has multiple extensions on the VSCode marketplace, totaling over 13 million installs. News of the extensions being malicious comes from cybersecurity researchers Amit Assaraf and Itay Kruk, who have expertise in scanning VSCode for malicious extensions. In a report published today, the researchers say they discovered suspicious code in the extensions and reported their findings to Microsoft. "Microsoft removed both extensions from the VS Code marketplace and banned the developer," reads a post from a Microsoft employee to YCombinator's Hacker News. "A member of the community did a deep security analysis of the extension and found multiple red flags that indicate malicious intent and reported this to us. Our security researchers at Microsoft confirmed this claims and found additional suspicious code." "We banned the publisher from the VS Marketplace and removed all of their extensions and uninstalled from all VS Code instances that have this extension running. For clarity - the removal had nothing to do about copyright/licenses, only about potential malici...