SFTPresso moves files over SFTP (SSH) and FTP/FTPS and handles your server credentials along the way, so I take security reports seriously. Thanks in advance for the help.

Please don't open a public issue for a security problem.

Report it privately through GitHub instead:

1. Go to https://github.com/jmwerk/SFTPresso/security/advisories/new, or
2. Open the repo's Security tab → Report a vulnerability.

If private reporting isn't available to you for some reason, email j.m.werkheiser+SFTPresso@gmail.com with SFTPresso security in the subject.

It helps a lot if you include:

• The affected version (next to SFTPresso in the Extensions view)
• Your VS Code version and OS
• The protocol/config involved (sftp / ftp / FTPS, hopping, profiles) — with credentials and hostnames redacted
• Steps to reproduce, and what an attacker actually gains from it
• Anything relevant from the SFTP output channel (redacted, same as above)

I maintain this project alone, so treat these as best-effort targets, not an SLA:

Fixes go out as a normal release to the VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX, along with a GitHub Security Advisory and a CHANGELOG.md entry. You'll be credited in the advisory unless you'd rather not be. If you can, please hold off on public disclosure until the fix has shipped.

Only the current release gets security fixes — there's no long-term-support branch. Updates arrive automatically through the Marketplace or Open VSX, so staying current is really the only supported path:

In scope

• Credential handling — password storage, key/passphrase handling, secrets leaking into logs, the output channel, telemetry, or error messages
• Code execution or writes outside the local/remote paths you configured, including path traversal via a remote filename during download or sync
• Weakening SSH/TLS transport security below what you actually configured
• A vulnerable dependency that's genuinely reachable from the extension's own code
• Anything in the release pipeline that could ship a tampered .vsix

Out of scope

• Vulnerabilities in the remote SFTP/FTP server you're connecting to — that's not this project
• The throwaway credentials and SSH keys under test/integration/ — test-only, never used outside the Docker compose stack
• Anything that requires an attacker who already has code execution or filesystem access as you — at that point they can just read sftp.json and your SSH keys directly
• Scanner output with no demonstrated impact
• Hardening that's really VS Code's job (extension sandboxing, the marketplace trust model)

A few things worth understanding up front, since they explain whether something you've noticed is a bug or just how this is built:

• Your config lives in your workspace. .vscode/sftp.json is a plain file in your project. If it has a password, privateKeyPath, or passphrase in it, anything that can read the workspace — including a commit — can read those too. If the file holds secrets, put it in .gitignore.
• The OS keychain is the better option. Leave password out of sftp.json and let SFTPresso prompt you for it — it'll store the password in VS Code's SecretStorage (backed by your OS keychain), keyed by protocol://username@host:port. SFTP: Save Password, SFTP: Clear Password, and SFTP: Migrate Plaintext Password manage those entries, and I'd recommend using them over a plaintext password.
• Private keys are read from disk by path, at connect time. Keeping that file's permissions locked down is on you.
• SSH host keys are checked. Every connection is verified against your own ~/.ssh/known_hosts (or SFTPresso's own store, for keys you've only accepted here) — see Host key verification in the wiki for exactly how that works and what strictHostKeyChecking changes about it.
• FTP is unencrypted, by protocol. Set "secure": true for FTPS if your server supports it — plain ftp sends credentials and file contents in the clear no matter what this extension does.
• sftp.json is config, not code, but treat it like any other untrusted file. It's parsed as JSONC, not executed — but it does decide where your files go, so review one from a repo you don't trust before connecting, the same as you would any other workspace file.

• CodeQL runs on every push and PR to develop, plus weekly on a schedule.
• Dependabot opens weekly update PRs for npm dependencies and GitHub Actions.
• Unit tests run on every push, and the FTP/SFTP integration suite runs the real client code against Docker-hosted servers in CI.