Researchers Warn AI Coding Agents Are Being Hijacked via Fake Bug Reports

Security researchers have identified a scalable attack technique called 'Agentjacking,' in which malicious actors embed hidden instructions inside fake bug reports submitted to AI coding agents. Because these agents are built to read and act on issue content, they execute the injected commands as if they were legitimate tasks. The attack requires minimal effort — a convincing bug report with a concealed directive is enough — and works across common intake channels like GitHub Issues, Jira tickets, and support emails. Once triggered, the injected instructions run with the full permissions granted to the agent, including file system access, API keys, and network capabilities. Conventional defenses such as web application firewalls and input sanitization are ineffective because the attack exploits the semantic meaning of text rather than structural vulnerabilities in data.