Misbehavior1 sourceFirst seen
CopyPasta: a README comment that talks coding agents into spreading themselves like a virus
Ourtake
The license file was the hook. Nobody reads the license, and now the license reads the agent.
What happened
HiddenLayer researchers demonstrated the CopyPasta attack, a prompt injection hidden in a README comment that tricks AI coding assistants into copying the payload into new files and inserting arbitrary code. The researchers said Cursor, Windsurf, Kiro and Aider copied the attack, and the test payload was a relatively harmless line of Python code.