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AI · June 3, 2025

MCP Defender

Hi HN, MCP Defender is an open source desktop app that automatically proxies your MCP traffic in AI apps like Cursor, Claude, Windsurf and VSCode. It then scans all requests and responses between the apps and the MCP tools they call. If it detects anything malicious, it alerts you and lets you allow or block the tool call. While the threat landscape of MCP is still being actively researched, there are dangerous things that MCP Defender can block today. For example, a developer asks Cursor to fix a Github issue with an attached crash log. However, the Github issue was created by an attacker…

MCP Defender launched on June 3, 2025 with 152 votes, #246 of 7,999 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.

What it does

MCP Defender is a desktop app that automatically secures AI apps like Cursor from a variety of attacks. If it detects the AI trying to do anything malicious on your computer, it alerts you and lets you block or allow the action.

MCP Defender protects Cursor and other AI apps on your computer from security threats.

In the maker’s words, at launch

Hi HN, MCP Defender is an open source desktop app that automatically proxies your MCP traffic in AI apps like Cursor, Claude, Windsurf and VSCode. It then scans all requests and responses between the apps and the MCP tools they call. If it detects anything malicious, it alerts you and lets you allow or block the tool…

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