⛨ MCPShield

MCP Supply Chain Security Scanner — detect vulnerabilities, typosquats, and misconfigurations in your MCP server configs before they reach production.

Think "Snyk for MCP servers."

What It Does

MCPShield scans your MCP configuration files (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, etc.) and detects:

Typosquat packages — Levenshtein distance analysis against 40+ known legitimate MCP packages, plus a database of confirmed malicious packages
Known CVEs — checks every server against a vulnerability database of disclosed MCP security issues (CVE-2025-68145, etc.)
Hardcoded credentials — API keys, database URLs, tokens, private keys embedded in config files
Dangerous permissions — system directory access, disabled sandboxes, unrestricted file access
Unverified publishers — flags packages not from trusted scopes (@anthropic/, @modelcontextprotocol/, etc.)
Transport security — HTTP endpoints, missing authentication on SSE connections

Quick Start

# Scan a specific config file
node src/index.js scan --config path/to/claude_desktop_config.json

# Auto-discover and scan all MCP configs on your system
node src/index.js scan

# Output JSON for CI/CD pipelines
node src/index.js scan --config mcp.json --json

# Save report to file
node src/index.js scan --config mcp.json --json --output report.json

Install Globally (optional)

npm link
mcpshield scan

CI/CD Integration

MCPShield uses exit codes for pipeline integration:

| Exit Code | Meaning | |-----------|---------| | 0 | No high/critical findings — safe to proceed | | 1 | High-severity findings detected | | 2 | Critical findings (typosquats, RCE, credential exposure) |

GitHub Actions Example

- name: MCP Security Scan
  run: |
    npx mcpshield scan --config .cursor/mcp.json --json --output mcpshield-report.json
  continue-on-error: false

- name: Upload Security Report
  if: always()
  uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  with:
    name: mcpshield-report
    path: mcpshield-report.json

Config File Locations

MCPShield auto-discovers configs from:

| Client | Location | |--------|----------| | Claude Desktop (macOS) | ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json | | Claude Desktop (Windows) | %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json | | Claude Desktop (Linux) | ~/.config/claude/claude_desktop_config.json | | Cursor | ~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json | | Windsurf | ~/.windsurf/mcp.json | | VS Code | .vscode/mcp.json | | Continue | ~/.continue/config.json |

Example Output

  ╔═══════════════════════════════════════════╗
  ║                                           ║
  ║   ⛨  MCPShield v0.1.0                     ║
  ║   MCP Supply Chain Security Scanner        ║
  ║                                           ║
  ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════╝

─── SCANNING: User-specified ──────────────────────────

📦 github (mcp-servr-github)
  🛑 MALICIOUS PACKAGE DETECTED
  Typosquat — contains credential-harvesting payload
  Impersonates: mcp-server-github (distance: 1)
  ↳ REMOVE THIS SERVER IMMEDIATELY

   1.  CRITICAL  MALICIOUS: Typosquat — contains credential-harvesting payload
      Confidence: confirmed | Distance: 1 | Method: single character difference
      ↳ Remove this server and replace with the legitimate package.

─── SCAN SUMMARY ──────────────────────────────────────

  Servers scanned:  8
  Total findings:   18

   CRITICAL   7 findings
   HIGH       6 findings
   MEDIUM     5 findings

  ⛨ 1 typosquat(s) detected — immediate action required
  ⚠ 3 server(s) from unverified publishers

Try It

Test with the included vulnerable config:

node src/index.js scan --config examples/vulnerable-config.json

Test with a clean config:

node src/index.js scan --config examples/clean-config.json

Architecture

mcpshield-cli/
├── src/
│   ├── index.js          # CLI entry point & orchestrator
│   ├── config.js         # Config discovery & parsing
│   ├── typosquat.js      # Typosquat detection (Levenshtein + known malicious DB)
│   ├── credentials.js    # Credential & permission scanning
│   ├── cvecheck.js       # CVE database matching
│   └── output.js         # Terminal formatting & report generation
├── data/
│   └── vulndb.js         # Vulnerability database, known packages, credential patterns
├── examples/
│   ├── vulnerable-config.json    # Test config with intentional issues
│   └── clean-config.json         # Clean config for comparison
└── package.json

Roadmap

[ ] npm registry live lookup (verify package exists, check download counts)
[ ] Real-time CVE feed integration (NVD, GitHub Advisory Database)
[ ] MCP server runtime behavioral analysis
[ ] Config file watcher (continuous monitoring)
[ ] VS Code extension
[ ] GitHub App for PR checks
[ ] Policy-as-code engine (OPA/Rego)

License

MIT

MCP Servers