Hi, On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 09:29:05AM +0200, Michael Straßberger wrote: > since I haven't seen yet a post about this: There was a Supply Chain > attack targeting the npm package- axios.
There's now also "Post Mortem: axios npm supply chain compromise", which mentions that an elaborate social-engineering attack was used: https://github.com/axios/axios/issues/10636 with impersonation, a fake Slack workspace, MS Teams meeting, etc. Copying pieces of what @jasonsaayman wrote in the GitHub issue above: > The attacker gained access to the lead maintainer's PC through a > targeted social engineering campaign and RAT malware. This gave them > access to the npm account credentials, which they used to publish the > malicious versions. > > The attack followed patterns documented in similar campaigns targeting > open source maintainers. > About 2 weeks before March 31: social engineering campaign initiated > against the lead maintainer > March 30, 05:57 UTC: [email protected] published to npm > March 31, 00:21 UTC: [email protected] published with [email protected] > injected > March 31, around 01:00 UTC: [email protected] published with the same payload > March 31, around 01:00 UTC: first external detections > March 31, around 01:00 UTC: community members file issues reporting the > compromise. The attacker deletes them using the compromised account. > March 31, 01:38 UTC: axios collaborator DigitalBrainJS opens PR > chore(ci): add deprecate action; #10591 to deprecate the compromised > versions, flags the deleted issues to the community, and contacts npm > directly > March 31, 03:15 UTC: malicious versions removed from npm > March 31, 03:29 UTC: plain-crypto-js removed from npm > so the attack vector mimics what google has documented here: > https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/unc1069-targets-cryptocurrency-ai-social-engineering > > they tailored this process specifically to me by doing the following: > > - they reached out masquerading as the founder of a company they had > cloned the companys founders likeness as well as the company itself. > - they then invited me to a real slack workspace. this workspace was > branded to the companies ci and named in a plausible manner. the slack > was thought out very well, they had channels where they were sharing > linked-in posts, the linked in posts i presume just went to the real > companys account but it was super convincing etc. they even had what i > presume were fake profiles of the team of the company but also number of > other oss maintainers. > - they scheduled a meeting with me to connect. the meeting was on ms > teams. the meeting had what seemed to be a group of people that were > involved. > - the meeting said something on my system was out of date. i installed > the missing item as i presumed it was something to do with teams, and > this was the RAT. > - everything was extremely well co-ordinated looked legit and was done > in a professional manner. Alexander
