Hackers have compromised dozens of popular open source packages in an ongoing supply chain attack

In Brief

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Hackers have compromised several popular open source projects relied on by software developers all over the world in an ongoing cyberattack.

On Tuesday, cybersecurity firms StepSecurity and SafeDep warned of the latest wave of so-called “supply chain” attacks, which aim to compromise developers of popular open source projects and use that access to plant malicious updates that are pushed to users downstream. 

According to SafeDep, hackers took over the account of one developer and released over 630 malicious versions across 317 packages in about 20 minutes. The goal of the attack is to steal credentials for various services, including password managers, as a way to steal data and continue spreading the malware. 

Among the packages that the hackers compromised there’s Antv, a library made by Alibaba. In some cases, the hackers published malicious updates on GitHub, according to JFrog Security.

This latest wave of attacks is part of a wider campaign targeting open source projects and the developers who use the code for their own projects. Researchers have dubbed the hacks “Mini Shai-Hulud,” after the attack followed a previous, more expansive hacking campaign. 

Last week, in another wave of attacks as part of the Mini Shai-Hulud attacks, hackers compromised the computers of two OpenAI employees after hacking the open source library TanStack. OpenAI was just one of several victims.

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