Guess what they did a year ago.
They removed 700 or so packages from NuGet proactively but those turned out to be false positives.
It is hard to do the right things.
FTFY
If you want to use extensions or node packages or pypi packages without doing a detailed review you're accumulating technical debt. You're assuming a risk in order to ship rapidly. You can either pay that down at some point under control, or bear the interest when it comes due.
"They have changed, gramps. This really smart Satya Nadella is CEO. They are the good guys now. Don't be so bitter over old stuff."
Also: Note that the headline undersells the news dramatically. The article begins with:
"GitHub has confirmed that roughly 3,800 internal repositories were breached after one of its employees installed a malicious VS Code extension."