Case amazon-q-wiper-promptAI supply chainJul 23, 2025United States

Hacker plants data-wiping prompt in Amazon Q Developer VS Code extension

A malicious pull request slipped a prompt telling the AI agent to wipe local files and AWS resources into a signed Q extension release; a formatting error kept it from executing.

HighAttack on AIStatus: ResolvedVerified case file

Open in the interactive map Cite this case

Reported: Jul 23, 2025
Location: United States
Target: Amazon Q Developer extension
Severity: High
Triggered by: Unknown hacker using GitHub alias lkmanka58
Actor type: Hacktivist
Reported loss: None reported
CVE: None

What happened

A malicious pull request slipped a prompt telling the AI agent to wipe local files and AWS resources into a signed Q extension release; a formatting error kept it from executing.

Impact: Malicious prompt distributed to an extension with over 950,000 installs; Amazon said the prompt was malformed and no customer resources were affected

Who triggered it

Actor: Unknown hacker using GitHub alias lkmanka58

Attribution: Self-claimed via 404 Media interview (said goal was to expose 'AI security theater'); identity not publicly attributed by Amazon

Motive: Demonstrating weak AI supply-chain controls; attacker claimed no intent to cause real damage

How it happened

Attack vector: Commit to the open-source aws-toolkit-vscode GitHub repository inserting a destructive natural-language prompt that shipped in signed release 1.84.0

Root cause: Inadequate access controls and code review in the public repository allowed an unknown account to land a prompt payload that was then packaged and signed without detection

Timeline

Jul 13, 2025Account lkmanka58 commits the malicious prompt to Amazon's GitHub repository
Jul 17, 2025Version 1.84.0 of Amazon Q Developer for VS Code ships with the wiper prompt
Jul 23, 2025404 Media reports the compromise; Amazon acknowledges and pulls the release
Jul 24, 2025Amazon releases clean version 1.85.0 and revokes compromised credentials

Response

Amazon removed 1.84.0, revoked and replaced credentials, published 1.85.0 and said it mitigated an attempt to exploit a known issue in two open-source repositories

Current status: Resolved

Sources (open in a new tab)

BleepingComputer bleepingcomputer.com
TechRepublic techrepublic.com
CyberInsider cyberinsider.com

Cite this case

Hacker plants data-wiping prompt in Amazon Q Developer VS Code extension. AI Threat Watch, case amazon-q-wiper-prompt, Jul 23, 2025. https://aithreat.io/cases/amazon-q-wiper-prompt/

Permanent link: https://aithreat.io/cases/amazon-q-wiper-prompt/