Malicious SkillPublished Mar 21, 2026

Claude Project references a skill that writes to ~/.claude/skills

HighAARM tierConfirmed
Seen8times across2customers
jiffy-ti-2026-000090

Summary

Project includes a "recommended skill" link that, when installed, copies itself into the user's global ~/.claude/skills/ directory — escaping the project scope and persisting across sessions.

Severity & confidence

Severity
High

High

Credible abuse path with meaningful impact on confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Remediate on a short timeline; do not wait for the next sprint cycle.

Confidence
Confirmed

Confirmed

Observed directly by Jiffy scanners or validated by multiple independent sources. Indicators are reliable enough to drive automated action.

Indicators

Observed patterns and artifacts associated with this entry. Each indicator can be copied into your detection stack or SIEM.

  • (?is)(?:install|add).{0,100}\.claude/skills/

Detection rule

A YARA-style pseudo-rule auto-generated from the indicators above. Useful as a starting point — adapt the syntax for your target detection platform.

YARA-style pseudo-rule
rule jiffy_ti_2026_000090
{
    meta:
        source = "jiffy-intel"
        severity = "high"
        description = "Auto-generated from Jiffy Intel indicators"
    strings:
    $content_pattern_0 = "(?is)(?:install|add).{0,100}\\.claude/skills/"
    condition:
        $content_pattern_0
}

Auto-generated from the indicators above. Adapt syntax for your detection stack before deploying.

Affected tools

ToolVersionsStatus
claude.ai (Projects)*vulnerable

Example artifacts

Sanitized examples of artifacts Jiffy has observed exhibiting this pattern. Publisher handles are redacted; version ranges and status reflect the most recent scan.

  • Dev Productivity ProjectClaude project
    Removed
    Source
    Claude Projects (claude.ai)
    First observed
    Mar 11, 2026
    Last observed
    Apr 4, 2026
  • AI Coding StarterClaude project
    Under review
    Source
    Claude Projects (claude.ai)
    First observed
    Mar 15, 2026

How to remediate

  1. 01Claude Projects should reference skills that are scoped to the project session, not installed globally.
  2. 02Report any global-install skill.

Timeline & sources

Timeline

  1. First observedMar 11, 20261 month ago
  2. Last updatedApr 26, 2026today
  3. PublishedMar 21, 202627 days ago

Sources

scanner

References

Scan for patterns like this

Point Jiffy at your GitHub org, IDE config, or a single artifact. Get a scored report in under a minute.

Start a free scan