231–240 of 498 posts
I like to think I wouldn't. I don't put credentials into links from emails that I didn't trigger right then (e.g. password reset emails). That's a security skill everyone should be practicing in 2025.
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Totally agreed, and I'm surprised this idea hasn't become more mainstream yet. If a package wants to access the filesystem, shell, OS API's, sockets, etc., those should be permissions you have to explicitly grant in your code.
It's harder than it looks. I wrote an essay exploring why here: https://blog.plan99.net/why-not-capability-languages-a8e6cbd...
I think I need to read up more on how to deal with (avoiding) changes to your public APIs when doing dependency injection, because that seems like basically what you're doing in a capability-based module system. I feel like there has to be some way to make such a system more ergonomic and make the common case of e.g. "I just want to give this thing the ability to make any HTTP request" easy, while still allowing for flexibility if you want to lock that down more.
With the way things are going, I can't tell at a glance whether they mean crypto, VR, or AI when they say "web 3."
Dodged a bullet indeed I find it insane that someone would get access to a package like this, then just push a shitty crypto stealer. You're a criminal with a one-in-a-million opportunity. Wouldn't you invest an extra week pushing a more fledged out exploit? You can exfiltrate API keys, add your SSH public key to the server then exfiltrate the server's IP address so you can snoop in there manually, if you're on a dev…
Get in, steal a couple hundred grand, get out, do the exact same thing a few months later. Repeat a few times and you can live worry free until retirement if you know to evade the cops. Even if you steal other stuff, you're going to need to turn it all into cryptocurrency anyway, and how much is an AWS key really going to bring in. There are criminals that focus on extracting passwords and password manager databases…
> one-in-a-million opportunity
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> 2. U2F/Webauthn key as second factor is phishing-proof. TOTP is not. TOTP doesn't need to be phishing-proof if you use a password manager integrated with the browser, though.
A browser-integrated password manager is only phishing-proof if it's 100% reliable. If it ever fails to detect a credential field, it trains users that they sometimes need to work around this problem by copy-pasting the credential from the password manager UI, and then phishers can exploit that. AFAIK all existing password manager extensions have this problem, as do all browsers' native password-management features.
If certain websites fail to be detected, thats a security issue on those specific websites, as I'll learn which ones tend to fail.
If they rarely fail to detect in general, its infrequent enough to be diligent in those specific cases. In my experience with password managers, they rarely fail to detect fields. If anything, they over detect fields.
Then there's days like this.
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> 1. NEVER EVER login from an email link. EVER. There are enough legit and phishing emails asking you to do this that it's basically impossible to tell one from the other. The only way to win is to not try. Sites choosing to replace password login with initiating the login process and then clicking a "magic link" in your email client is awful for developing good habits here, or for giving good general advice. :c
In that case it's the same as a reset-password flow. In both cases it's good advice not to click the link unless you initiated the request. But with the auth token in the link, you don't need to login again, so the advice is still the same: don't login from a link in your email; clicking links is ok.
1. If a target website (say important.com) sends poorly-configured CORS headers and has poorly configured cookies (I think), a 3rd-party website is able to send requests to important.com with the cookies of the user, if they're logged in there. This depends on important.com having done something wrong, but the result is as powerful as getting a password from the user. (This is called cross-site request forgery, CSRF.)
2. They might have a browser zero-day and get code execution access to your machine.
If you initiated the process that sent that email and the timing matches, and there's no other way than opening the link, that's that. But clicking links in emails is overall risky.
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Browsers moved away from the https lock icon after https become very very common. Email hasn't reached a comparable state.
We are talking about a UX failure regarding what a lock icon or a checkmark icon represents. Popularity is irrelevant. It's entirely about the disconnect between what tech geeks think a lock/checkmark icon represents and normal users think it represents.
I can think of 3 paths to improve situation (assuming that "everyone deploys cryptographic email infrastructure instantly" is not gonna happen).
1. The email client doesn't indicate DKIM at all. This is strictly worse than today, because then the attack could have claimed to be from npmjs.com.
2. You only get a checkmark if you have DKIM et al plus you're a "verified domain". This means only big corporations get the checkmark -- I hate this option. It's EV SSL but even worse. And again, unless npmjs.com was a "big corporation" the attacker could have just faked the sender and the user would not notice anything different, since in that world the authentic npmjs.com emails wouldn't have a checkmark either.
3. The checkmark icon is changed into something else, nothing else happens. But what? "DKIM" isn't the full picture (and would be horribly confusing too). Putting a sunflower there seems a little weird. Do you really apply this much significance to the specific icon?
The path that HTTPS took just hasn't been repeatable in the email space; the upgrade cycles are much slower, the basic architecture is client->server->server not client->server, and so on.
This phishing email is full of red flags. Here are example red flags from that email: - Update your 2FA credentials What does that even mean? That's not something that can be updated - that's kind of the point of 2FA. - It's been over 12 months since you last 2FA update Again - meaningless nonsense. There's no such thing as a 2FA update. Maybe the recipient was thinking "password update" - but updating passwords regu…
> What does that even mean? That's not something that can be updated - that's kind of the point of 2FA.
I didn't sit and read and parse the whole thing. That was mistake one. I have stated elsewhere, I was stressed and in a rush, and was trying to knock things off my list.
Also, 2FA can of course be updated. npm has had some shifts in how it approaches security over the years, and having worked within that ecosystem for the better part of 10-15 years, this didn't strike me as particularly unheard of on their part. This, especially after the various acquisitions they've had.
It's no excuse, just a contributing factor.
> It would be very unusual to write like that in a formal security notification.
On the contrary, I'd say this is pretty par for the course in corpo-speak. When "kindly" is used incorrectly, that's when it's a red flag for me.
> What does "temporarily locked" mean? That's not a thing. Also creating a sense of urgency is a classic phishing technique and a red flag.
Yes, of course it is. I'm well aware of that. Again, this email reached me at the absolute worst time it could have and I made a very human error.
"Temporarily locked" surprises me that it surprises you. My account was, in fact, temporarily locked while I was trying to regain access to it. Even npm had to manually force a password reset from their end.
> Any nonstandard domain is a red flag.
When I contacted npm, support responded from githubsupport.com. When I pay my TV tax here in Germany (a governmental thing), it goes to a completely bizarre, random third party site that took me ages to vet.
There's no such thing as a "standard" domain anymore with gTLDs, and while I should have vetted this particular one, it didn't stand out as something impossible. In my head, it was their new help support site - just like github.community exists.
Again - and I guess I have to repeat this until I'm blue in the face - this is not an excuse. Just reasons that contributed to my mistake.
> NEVER EVER EVER click links in any kind of security alert email.
I'm aware. I've taught this as the typical security person at my respective companies. I've embodied it, followed it closely for years, etc. I slipped up, and I think I've been more than transparent about that fact.
I didn't ask for my packages to be downloaded 2.6 billion times per week when I wrote most of these 10 years ago or inherited them more than five ago. You can argue - rightfully - about my technical failure here of using an outdated form of 2FA. That's on me, and would have protected against this, but to say this doesn't happen to security-savvy individuals is the wrong message here (see: Troy Hunt getting phished).
Shit happens. It just happened to happen to me, and I happen to have undue control over some stuff that's found its way into most of the javascript world.
The security lessons and advice are all very sound - I'm glad people are talking about them - but the point I'm trying to make is, that I am a security aware/trained person, I am hyper-vigilant, and I am still a human that made a series of small or lazy mistakes that turned into one huge mistake.
Thank you for your input, however. I do appreciate that people continue to talk about the security of it all.
Dodged a bullet indeed I find it insane that someone would get access to a package like this, then just push a shitty crypto stealer. You're a criminal with a one-in-a-million opportunity. Wouldn't you invest an extra week pushing a more fledged out exploit? You can exfiltrate API keys, add your SSH public key to the server then exfiltrate the server's IP address so you can snoop in there manually, if you're on a dev…