Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Three dominant themesfrom the discussion

Theme	Core idea	Supporting quotation
1. Community plugins grant unrestricted system access	Plugins inherit Obsidian’s full permissions, allowing them to read/write files, reach the internet, and even install software. This design is seen as a fundamental security flaw.	“Obsidian has no protection at all. Installing a plugin gives it full access to your computer.” — Groxx
2. The attack relies on users disabling security warnings	The exploit requires the victim to be socially engineered into enabling the sync feature and deliberately turning off protection prompts. It’s a user‑mistake scenario, not a technical bug.	“The victim is prompted to enable the 'Installed community plugins' synchronization feature.” — slowmover
3. Calls for proper sandboxing and permission models	Commenters demand a sandboxed plugin architecture (e.g., WASM/WASI, taint‑based capabilities, artifact attestation) so that plugins can be granted only the permissions they need.	“A WASM/WASI based plugin system would properly sandbox plugin code.” — Paul‑E

All quotations are reproduced verbatim with the original authors credited.

🚀 Project Ideas

Obsidian Plugin Provenance& Sandboxing Service

Summary

Automated security vetting and signing of community plugins with attestation to prevent malicious code from running unchecked.
Provides a sandboxed runtime that isolates plugin execution while exposing only declared capabilities.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Obsidian power users, enterprise vault administrators, plugin developers
Core Feature	Signed SBOM/Attestation, automated static analysis, sandboxed WASM execution with fine‑grained permissions
Tech Stack	Go microservices, Docker/Firejail sandbox, GraalVM for JS evaluation, GraphQL API
Difficulty	High
Monetization	Revenue-ready: Subscription $9/mo per active user

Notes

HN community will value a trustworthy “plug‑in passport” that eliminates the social‑engineering vector described in the thread.
Reduces the risk of supply‑chain attacks and gives users a clear, auditable provenance trail for every plugin they install.

VaultSync Security Bridge

Summary

Securely distributes and synchronizes vetted community plugins across shared Obsidian vaults, enforcing explicit permission gates.
Prevents accidental propagation of compromised plugins by requiring signed manifests before sync.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Teams and researchers who share Obsidian vaults, enterprise note‑taking environments
Core Feature	Manifest signing, per‑user permission approval workflow, encrypted sync of plugin metadata only
Tech Stack	Node.js backend, PostgreSQL, JWT + WebAuthn, End‑to‑end encrypted storage
Difficulty	Medium
Monetization	Revenue-ready: Tiered SaaS $5/user/mo (free tier for ≤5 users)

Notes

Directly addresses the attack scenario where a malicious vault convinces users to enable dangerous plugins.
Provides a clear, repeatable process for vetting plugins before they can be synced, giving HN users a practical mitigation tool.

--- ## Plugin Permission Dashboard for Obsidian

Summary

Interactive UI overlay that surfaces each plugin’s requested capabilities and obtains explicit user consent before activation.
Integrates with Obsidian’s update notifier to warn about permission changes in new plugin versions.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Casual and power Obsidian users who install community plugins
Core Feature	Permission request flow with risk scoring, one‑click revocation, visual capability breakdown
Tech Stack	Electron UI, React, Obsidian Plugin API bridge, Local storage for consent state
Difficulty	Medium
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

Makes the “multiple safety warnings” mentioned in the discussion tangible and user‑friendly, likely to be embraced by the community.
Improves usability while tightening security, turning a known pain point into a smooth, trusted workflow.