Securing your IDE
An integrated development environment (IDE) integrates a number of different functions with the basic tool of writing code—a text editor. IDEs offer custom configurations for both users and projects, code completion, version control integration, local building and testing, integrated debuggers, CI/CD integration, language intelligence, and more.
As this section progresses, it will use the term IDE to cover both full-fledged IDEs, such as IntelliJ IDEA, and IDE-like code editors, such as visual studio code (VS Code).
Google security engineer, David Dworken, presented an intriguing talk at DEF CON 29, where he discussed the different security issues he found in code editors and IDEs.1 Even Windows Notepad, which you might consider so simple and lacking in functions that it must be immune to hacks, had a vulnerability that could make it execute arbitrary code.
He also discussed an attack in which...