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Thursday, 10 September 2026

The Daily Edition: 2 stories, ranked by significance

  1. Security & privacy

    Scanning the Harness: An Empirical Study of Supply-Chain Defects in AI Coding-Agent Configurations

    A study of 3,171 public GitHub repositories using AI coding-agent configuration artifacts (instruction files, skills, hooks, MCP server declarations, subagents) found that 16.0% carry a security defect, most commonly unpinned MCP server versions, overly broad execution grants disguised as scoped, or skills that pre-approve shell access for installers. The researchers validated findings with independent re-derivation and model adjudication, and found the raw scanner false-positive rate was much higher (25.5%) than the confirmed rate. No credential-exfiltration path was confirmed.

    Read the storyNo. 1 of 2arXiv cs.SEMon 7 Sept
  2. Security & privacy

    Do AI Coding Assistants Check Before They Install? A Pre-Registered Demand-Side Audit of Trust Signals in the Research Software Supply Chain

    A pre-registered audit tested whether AI coding assistants check SBOMs, signed releases, build attestations, or official-channel declarations before installing software from six research-software projects. Across 1,920 registered trials (three models, two operating modes, plus a supplement on three frontier models), assistants opened any provenance signal in only 0.5% of trials and never ran a verification command, regardless of whether signals were present, missing, mismatched, or forged with a wrong issuer.

    No. 2 of 2arXiv cs.SEMon 7 Sept