Security News > 2022 > December > Hackers Bombard Open Source Repositories with Over 144,000 Malicious Packages

NuGet, PyPi, and npm ecosystems are the target of a new campaign that has resulted in over 144,000 packages being published by unknown threat actors.

"The packages were part of a new attack vector, with attackers spamming the open-source ecosystem with packages containing links to phishing campaigns," researchers from Checkmarx and Illustria said in a report published Wednesday.

Of the 144,294 phishing-related packages that were detected, 136,258 were published on NuGet, 7,824 on PyPi, and 212 on npm.

The fake packages themselves claimed to provide hacks, cheats, and free resources in an attempt to trick users into downloading them.

The poisoning of NuGet, PyPi, and npm with fabricated packages once again illustrates the evolving methods threat actors use to attack the software supply chain.

"Automating the process also allowed the attackers to create a large number of user accounts, making it difficult to trace the source of the attack," the researchers said.

News URL

https://thehackernews.com/2022/12/hackers-bombard-open-source.html