ZCode AI Coding App Found Secretly Uploading Encrypted Git Repo Snapshots to Cloud

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Security researcher ferstar discovered on September 18, 2026, that ZCode, an AI coding desktop app by Chinese firm Zhipu, was silently packaging and uploading entire workspace snapshots — including full Git histories — to Aliyun cloud storage without user consent. The researcher found a 313MB encrypted archive in ZCode's local data directory, with logs showing 564 failed upload attempts for a 345MB commercial project, while a smaller 15KB snapshot from a public repository was confirmed as successfully received by the server. Reverse-engineering the Electron app revealed a multi-step process: the client requests upload credentials from Zhipu's servers, compresses the workspace, encrypts it using AES-256-CTR with an RSA-wrapped key, and sends it directly to Aliyun OSS. Critically, the encryption key is held exclusively by Zhipu's backend, meaning users cannot decrypt their own uploaded data — a design the researcher argues serves the server's access, not the user's recovery needs. Zhipu publicly confirmed the upload behavior the same day the findings were published.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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