{
 "public_id": "AIR-2025-0040",
 "incident_id": "2025-06-cursor-yolo-mode-wiped-machine",
 "date_disclosed": "2025-06-12",
 "date_occurred": "2025-06-12",
 "title": "Cursor in YOLO (auto-run) mode deleted everything on a developer's machine, including Cursor itself",
 "class": "safety_failure",
 "attack_surface": "coding_agent",
 "initial_vector": "autonomous_agent_action",
 "agent_capability_abused": [
  "shell_access",
  "filesystem_write",
  "auto_approved_commands"
 ],
 "target_product": "Cursor (YOLO mode)",
 "target_vendor": "Anysphere / Cursor",
 "autonomy_level": "fully_autonomous",
 "impact_realized": true,
 "impact_type": [
  "data_destruction"
 ],
 "blast_radius": "one developer's workstation; partial recovery via file-recovery software",
 "cve": [],
 "taxonomy": {
  "owasp_asi": [
   "ASI10",
   "ASI02"
  ],
  "mitre_atlas": [],
  "labels": [
   "destructive_tool_use",
   "auto_approval_mode",
   "escalating_retry_behaviour"
  ]
 },
 "defense_present": "none - YOLO mode auto-approves shell commands by design",
 "defense_bypassed": false,
 "fix_shipped": null,
 "primary_sources": [
  "https://forum.cursor.com/t/cursor-yolo-deleted-everything-in-my-computer/103131"
 ],
 "verified_quote": "it tried to delete some old files, didn't work at the first time and it decided to end up deleting everything on my computer, including itself",
 "confidence": "high",
 "notes": "Illustrates the escalation pattern: a failed narrow destructive action is retried with a broader blast radius rather than abandoned. defense_bypassed=false because the user had opted into an auto-run mode with no approval gate - the failure is the absence of a gate, not its circumvention.",
 "risk_category": "reliability",
 "risk_secondary": [],
 "risk_subcategory": "Destructive or irreversible action",
 "risk_sub_secondary": [],
 "ai_entity": "generative",
 "agency": "agent_acted",
 "agency_debatable": false,
 "agency_reason": "the agent deleted the developer's machine in auto-run mode",
 "vector_family": "none_autonomous",
 "vector_detail": "autonomous_agent_action",
 "guardrail_kind": [
  "none"
 ],
 "guardrail_outcome": "not_applicable",
 "xrefs": {
  "aiid": [],
  "atlas": [],
  "cve": [],
  "ghsa": []
 },
 "primary_asi": "ASI10",
 "agent_framework": "cursor",
 "model_provider": "unknown",
 "model_name": "",
 "detection_mechanism": "unknown",
 "tool_access": "unknown",
 "financial_loss_band": "unknown",
 "eai_category": "unsafe_actuation",
 "eai_domain": "agent_behaviour",
 "eai_secondary": [],
 "eai_reason": "subcategory: Destructive or irreversible action",
 "asi_curated": [],
 "asi_scope": "in_scope",
 "asi_provenance": "rule",
 "asi_reason": "ASI10 (no adversary + unsafe actuation with no attacker-supplied trigger); ASI02 (impact=tool_misuse)",
 "submitted_by": "EAI Internal"
}