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Malicious nx Packages Exfiltrate Credentials in 's1ngularity' Supply Chain Attack

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3 unique sources, 6 articles

Summary

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The Shai-Hulud attack, a self-replicating malware, has compromised at least 187 npm packages, affecting multiple maintainers. The attack uses a self-propagating mechanism to infect other packages by the same maintainer, modifying package.json, injecting a bundle.js script, repacking the archive, and republishing it. The malware uses TruffleHog to search the host for tokens and cloud credentials, creating unauthorized GitHub Actions workflows within repositories and exfiltrating sensitive data to a hardcoded webhook endpoint. The attack is named 'Shai-Hulud' after the shai-hulud.yaml workflow files used by the malware and follows the 's1ngularity' attack, potentially orchestrated by the same attackers. The attack unfolded in three phases, impacting 2,180 accounts and 7,200 repositories. The first phase, between August 26 and 27, directly impacted 1,700 users, leaking over 2,000 unique secrets and exposing 20,000 files. The second phase, between August 28 and 29, compromised an additional 480 accounts, mostly organizations, and exposed 6,700 private repositories. The third phase, beginning on August 31, targeted a single victim organization, publishing an additional 500 private repositories. The attackers used AI-powered CLI tools like Claude, Q, and Gemini to dynamically scan for high-value secrets, tuning the prompts for better success.

Timeline

  1. 16.09.2025 23:02 1 articles · 13d ago

    Shai-Hulud Self-Replication Mechanism Detailed

    The Shai-Hulud worm begins its propagation inside a compromised component and activates when the poisoned software is downloaded by an unsuspecting user. The worm uses the compromised NPM account to infect other packages maintained by the developer, creating a self-replicating cycle. The malware targets secrets, tokens, and credentials within the user's environment and installs TruffleHog to search for additional secrets. The worm attempts to create public copies of private repositories to access hardcoded secrets and steal source code. The attack has compromised hundreds of NPM packages, affecting a wide range of developers and organizations. Developers can check for infection by looking for repositories with 'Shai-Hulud Migration' in their description and branches named 'shai-hulud.' The attack is considered more dangerous due to the uncertainty of the attackers' next moves and the potential abuse of leaked secrets. The Shai-Hulud campaign is slowing down, and prompt take-downs may break the propagation cycle.

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  2. 16.09.2025 08:00 3 articles · 13d ago

    Shai-Hulud Attack Compromises Over 40 npm Packages

    The Shai-Hulud attack was first detected by ReversingLabs on September 15, 2025. The attack has compromised at least 187 npm packages, expanding significantly from the previously known 40 packages. The attack started with the compromise of the @ctrl/tinycolor npm package, which receives over 2 million weekly downloads, and has since expanded to include packages published under CrowdStrike's npm namespace. The attack uses a self-propagating mechanism to infect other packages by the same maintainer, modifying package.json, injecting a bundle.js script, repacking the archive, and republishing it. The malware uses TruffleHog to search the host for tokens and cloud credentials, creating unauthorized GitHub Actions workflows within repositories and exfiltrating sensitive data to a hardcoded webhook endpoint. The attack is named 'Shai-Hulud' after the shai-hulud.yaml workflow files used by the malware and follows the 's1ngularity' attack, potentially orchestrated by the same attackers. The most likely 'patient zero' for the Shai-Hulud attack is the 'rxnt-authentication' package. The attack has compromised hundreds of NPM packages, affecting a wide range of developers and organizations. Developers can check for infection by looking for repositories with 'Shai-Hulud Migration' in their description and branches named 'shai-hulud.' The attack is considered more dangerous due to the uncertainty of the attackers' next moves and the potential abuse of leaked secrets. The Shai-Hulud campaign is slowing down, and prompt take-downs may break the propagation cycle.

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  3. 06.09.2025 17:11 1 articles · 23d ago

    Nx Team Publishes Root Cause Analysis and Adopts New Security Measures

    The Nx team published a root cause analysis detailing the pull request title injection and insecure use of pull_request_target. Nx has adopted NPM's Trusted Publisher model and added manual approval for PR-triggered workflows to prevent future compromises.

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  4. 28.08.2025 13:36 4 articles · 1mo ago

    Malicious nx Packages Exfiltrate Credentials in 's1ngularity' Supply Chain Attack

    The attack unfolded in three distinct phases, impacting 2,180 accounts and 7,200 repositories. The first phase, between August 26 and 27, directly impacted 1,700 users, leaking over 2,000 unique secrets and exposing 20,000 files. The second phase, between August 28 and 29, compromised an additional 480 accounts, mostly organizations, and exposed 6,700 private repositories. The third phase, beginning on August 31, targeted a single victim organization, publishing an additional 500 private repositories. The attackers used AI-powered CLI tools like Claude, Q, and Gemini to dynamically scan for high-value secrets, tuning the prompts for better success. A new supply chain attack, codenamed Shai-Hulud, has compromised over 40 npm packages, affecting multiple maintainers. The attack uses TruffleHog's credential scanner to search developer machines for secrets and transmit them to an external server under the attacker's control. The attack targets both Windows and Linux systems and demonstrates a self-propagating mechanism enabling automatic infection of downstream packages, creating a cascading compromise across the ecosystem. The attack is assessed to be "directly downstream" of the s1ngularity attack, one of the most severe JavaScript supply chain attacks observed to date.

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