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NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

arstechnica.com

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Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#101

Post by ashishb »

bandrami wrote: post #87
ashishb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems a bit excessive to sandbox a command that really just downloads arbitrary code you are going to execute immediately afterwards anyways? I won't execute that code directly on my machine. I will always execute it inside the Docker container. Why do you want to run commands like `vite` or `eslint` directly on your machine? Why do they need access to anything outside the current directory?

I get this but then in practice the only actually valuable stuff on my computer is... the code and data in my dev containers. Everything else I can download off the Internet for free at any time.

No.

Most valuable data on your system for a malware author is login cookies and saved auth tokens of various services.

Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#102

Post by marcus_holmes »

zahlman wrote: post #49
crtasm wrote: post #4

>When you run npm install, npm doesn't just download packages. It executes code. Specifically, it runs lifecycle scripts defined in package.json - preinstall, install, and postinstall hooks. What's the legitimate use case for a package install being allowed to run arbitrary commands on your computer? Quote is from the researchers report https://www.koi.ai/blog/phantomraven-npm-malware-hidden-in-i... edit: I was think…

> doesn't just download packages. It executes code. Specifically, it It pains me to remember that the reason LLMs write like this is because many humans did in the training data.

Is the objection the small sentence that could have been a clause?

Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#103

Post by marcus_holmes »

jtokoph wrote: post #80

Keep in mind that the vast majority of the 86,000 downloads are probably automated downloads by tools looking for malicious code, or other malicious tools pulling every new package version looking for leaked credentials. When I iterate with new versions of a package that I’ve never promoted anywhere, each version gets hundreds of downloads in the first day or two of being published. 86,000 people did not get pwnd, po…

As TFA says, they're targeting package names that are somewhere in LLM training data but don't actually exist, so are being hallucinated by LLMs. And there's now a large number of folks with zero clue busy vibe-coding their killer app with no idea that bad things can happen.

I would not be surprised to find that 80%+ of those 86,000 people got pwned.

Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#104

Post by apsurd »

ashishb wrote: post #99
apsurd wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it annoys me that people fully automate things like type checkers and linting into post commit or worse entirely outsourced to CI. Because it means the hygiene is thrown over the fence in a post commit manner. AI makes this worse because they also run them "over the fence". However you run it, i want a human to hold accountability for the mainline committed code.

I run linters like eslint on my machine inside a container. This reduces attack surface. How does this throw hygiene over the fence?

Yes in a sibling reply, i was able to better understand your comment to mean "run stuff on my machine in a container"

Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#105

Post by minitech »

cxr wrote: post #36
chrisweekly wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing a custom registry. These exist IRL (eg jFrog Artifactory). Useful for managing allow-listed packages which have met whatever criteria you might have (eg CVE-free based on your security tool of choice). Use of a custom registry, and a sane package manager (pnpm, not npm), and its lockfile, will significantly enhance your supply-chain security.

No. I am literally describing bog standard use of an ordinary VCS/SCM where the code for e.g. Skia, sqlite, libpng, etc. is placed in a "third-party/" subdirectory. Except I'm deliberately using the words "admit" and "depository" here instead of "commit" and "repository" in keeping with the theme—of the widespread failure of people to use SCMs to manage the corresponding source code required to build their product/pr…

Yeah, people invented the concept of packages and package management because they couldn’t conceive of vendoring (which is weird considering basically all package managers make use of it themselves) and surely not because package management has actual benefits.

Maybe in a perfect world, we’d all use a better VCS whose equivalent of submodules actually could do that job. We are not in that world yet.

Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#106

Post by marcus_holmes »

650REDHAIR wrote: post #10

As a hobbyist how do I stay protected and in the loop for breaches like this? I often follow guides that are popular and written by well-respected authors and I might be too flippant with installing dependencies trying to solve a pain point that has derailed my original project. Somewhat related, I also have a small homelab running local services and every now and then I try a new technology. occasionally I’ll build…

Somewhat controversial these days, but treat every single dependency as a potential security nightmare, source of bugs, problem that you will have to solve in the future. Use dependencies carefully and as a last resort.

Vendoring dependencies (copying the package code into your project rather than using the package manager to manage it) can help - it won't stop a malicious package, but it will stop a package from turning malicious.

You can also copy the code you need from a dependency into your code (with a comment giving credit and a link to the source package). This is really useful if you just need some of the stuff that the package offers, and also forces you to read and understand the package code; great practice if you're learning.

Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#108

Post by ab_testing »

Given the recent npm attacks, is it even safe to develop using npm. Whenever I start a react project, it downloads hundreds of additional packages which I have mo idea about what they do. As a developer who has learnt programming as a hobby, is it better to stick to some other safe ways to develop front end like thyme leaf or plain js or something else.

When I build backend in flask or Django, I specifically type the python packages that I need. But front end development seems like a Pandora box of vulnerabilities

Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#109

Post by Kholin »

phiresky wrote: post #68
ashishb wrote: post #58

Here's my `npm` command these days. It reduces the attack surface drastically. alias npm='docker run --rm -it -v ${PWD}:${PWD} --net=host --workdir=${PWD} node:25-bookworm-slim npm' - No access to my env vars - No access to anything outside my current directory (usually a JS project). - No access to my .bashrc or other files. Ref: https://ashishb.net/programming/run-tools-inside-docker/

That seems a bit excessive to sandbox a command that really just downloads arbitrary code you are going to execute immediately afterwards anyways? Also I can recommend pnpm, it has stopped executing lifecycle scripts by default so you can whitelist which ones to run.

I've tried use pnpm to replace npm in my project, it really speed up when install dependencies on host machine, but much slower in the CI containers, even after config the cache volume. Which makes me come back to npm.

Re: NPM flooded with malicious packages downloaded more than 86k times

#110

Post by fragmede »

ab_testing wrote: post #108

Given the recent npm attacks, is it even safe to develop using npm. Whenever I start a react project, it downloads hundreds of additional packages which I have mo idea about what they do. As a developer who has learnt programming as a hobby, is it better to stick to some other safe ways to develop front end like thyme leaf or plain js or something else. When I build backend in flask or Django, I specifically type the…

Just a heads up that Pypi isn't immune from the same attack, with "Pypi supply chain attack" into Google revealing a (much smaller) number of packages that turned out to be malware. Some were not misspellings either, with one being a legitimate package that got hacked via GitHub Actions and a malicious payload added to the otherwise legitimate package.
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