Microsoft apologizes for removing VSCode extensions used by millions

stapp · Mar 14, 2025

Microsoft has reinstated the 'Material Theme – Free' and 'Material Theme Icons – Free' extensions on the Visual Studio Marketplace after finding that the obfuscated code they contained wasn't actually malicious.
The two VSCode extensions, which count over 9 million installs, were pulled from the VSCode Marketplace in late February over security risks, and their publisher, Mattia Astorino (aka 'equinusocio') was banned from the platform.
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Microsoft's Scott Hanselman apologized to Astorino yesterday in a GitHub issue opened by the developer asking for his account and themes to be reinstated.
"The publisher account for Material Theme and Material Theme Icons (Equinusocio) was mistakenly flagged and has now been restored," reads Hanselman's post.
"In the interest of safety, we moved fast and we messed up. We removed these themes because they fired off multiple malware detection indicators inside Microsoft, and our investigation came to the wrong conclusion."
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https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...-removing-vscode-extensions-used-by-millions/

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Microsoft apologizes for removing VSCode extensions used by millions

stapp Global Moderator

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Microsoft apologizes for removing VSCode extensions used by millions

stapp Global Moderator

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