Fake Moltbot AI Coding Assistant on VS Code Marketplace Drops Malware
A new malicious Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension for Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot) has been discovered by cybersecurity researchers on the official Extension Marketplace. It poses as a free artificial intelligence (AI) coding assistant but secretly installs a malicious payload on compromised hosts.
Microsoft has since removed the "ClawdBot Agent - AI Coding Assistant" ("clawdbot.clawdbot-agent") extension. On January 27, 2026, a user going by the handle "clawdbot" released it.
Moltbot has been extremely popular; as of this writing, it has more than 85,000 stars on GitHub. Developed by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger, the open-source project enables users to run a large language model (LLM)-powered personal AI assistant locally on their own devices and communicate ...