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Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

stepsecurity.io

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Re: Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

#852

Post by K0IN »

So here is the pitch: for npm / a new registry

1. Only the registry itself can build packages (only source provided) 2. Builds must be reproducable (no network or external files during build / publish) 3. New versions are hidden by default 4. Releases can only be published by an account, using a hardware 2fa token + password (no persistent login, no long lasting token) 5. All commits must be signed (maybe block web commits or add a cooldown of a few days?) 6. builtin scanners (using ai, virustotal, existing services) 7. if a security violation is found the version is instantly removed 8. Atleast 1 - 3 Days delay for releases 9. Hard no on binaries / post install scripts and binary data 10. blockchain like public record to see who published, updated, owns what

Re: Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

#853

Post by tyingq »

fishpen0 wrote: post #681
afavour wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irony is that Node has no need for Axios, native fetch support has been there for years, so in terms of network requests it is batteries included.

It doesn't matter. We pulled axios out of our codebase, but it still ends up in there as a child or peer from 40 other dependencies. Many from major vendors like datadog, slack, twilio, nx (in the gcs-cache extension), etc...

Serverless framework up until late yesterday also.

Re: Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

#854

Post by crab_galaxy »

embedding-shape wrote: post #339
zdc1 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing that keeps coming up is the github-code-is-fine-but-the-release-artifact-is-a-trojan issue. It really makes me question if "packages" should even exist in JavaScript, or if we could just be importing standard plain source code from a git repo. I understand why this doesn't work well with legacy projects, but it's something that the language could strive towards.

> I understand why this doesn't work well with legacy projects, but it's something that the language could strive towards. Why wouldn't that work well with legacy projects? In fact, the projects I was a part of that I'd call legacy nowadays, was in fact built by copy-and-pasting .js libraries into a "vendor/" directory, and that's how we shipped it as well, this was in the days before Bower (which was the npm of fron…

`vendor/` folders give me the worst developer PTSD :p

6 conflicting versions of jquery, and you know every single one of them was monkey patched, cemented into the codebase forever.

Re: Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

#855

Post by vakrdotme »

cyco130 wrote: post #459
afavour wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irony is that Node has no need for Axios, native fetch support has been there for years, so in terms of network requests it is batteries included.

I'm not sure fetch is a good server-side API. The typical fetch-based code snippet `fetch(API_URL).then(r => r.json())` has no response body size limit and can potentially bring down a server due to memory exhaustion if the endpoint at API_URL malfunctions for some reason. Fine in the browser but to me it should be a no-no on the server.

Browser fetch can lean on the fact that the runtime environment has hard limits per tab and the user will just close the tab if things get weird. on the server you're right

Re: Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

#856

Post by TheTaytay »

croemer wrote: post #329
TheTaytay wrote: post #309

I know there is a cooldown period for npm packages, but I’m beginning to want a cooldown for domains too. According to socket, the C2 server is sfrclak[.]com, which was registered in the last 24 hours.

NextDNS has a setting to block newly registered (<30d) domains.

Woah! TIL! Thank you!

Re: Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

#857

Post by tonymet »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #222
tonymet wrote: post #14

Has anyone tested general purpose malware detection on supply chains ? Like clamscan . I tried to test the LiteLLM hack but the affected packages had been pulled. Windows Defender AV has an inference based detector that may work when signatures have not yet been published

> tried to test the LiteLLM hack but the affected packages had been pulled Hey, I have been part of the archival effect/Litellm issue thread. I think I have stored them in archive.org for preservation purposes https://web.archive.org/web/20260325073027/https://files.pyt... (I have also made an archive of the github issue with all the comments manually till a certain point at https://web.archive.org/web/20260325054202…

thanks for highlighting that i will take a look and see if there's similar archive for the other vulnerabilities as well .

If i can make it work with clamscan & MS Defender i'll run a scan and try to report back

Re: Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

#858

Post by tonymet »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #222
tonymet wrote: post #14

Has anyone tested general purpose malware detection on supply chains ? Like clamscan . I tried to test the LiteLLM hack but the affected packages had been pulled. Windows Defender AV has an inference based detector that may work when signatures have not yet been published

> tried to test the LiteLLM hack but the affected packages had been pulled Hey, I have been part of the archival effect/Litellm issue thread. I think I have stored them in archive.org for preservation purposes https://web.archive.org/web/20260325073027/https://files.pyt... (I have also made an archive of the github issue with all the comments manually till a certain point at https://web.archive.org/web/20260325054202…

the primitive clamscan experiment worked! it detected Txt.Trojan.TeamPCP-10059839-1 from the .tar.gz archive. I'll continue testing to see if it's viable

   # apk add clamav-scanner freshclam
   # freshclam
   # curl -LO https://web.archive.org/web/20260325073027/https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/f6/2c/731b614e6cee0bca1e010a36fd381fba69ee836fe3cb6753ba23ef2b9601/litellm-1.82.8.tar.gz

    # clamscan litellm-1.82.8.tar.gz
   Loading:     6s, ETA:   0s [========================>]    3.63M/3.63M sigs
   Compiling:   2s, ETA:   0s [========================>]       41/41 tasks

   /root/supply-chain-scanner/pkg/litellm-1.82.8.tar.gz: Txt.Trojan.TeamPCP-10059839-1 FOUND

   ----------- SCAN SUMMARY -----------
   Known viruses: 3627757
   Engine version: 1.4.4
   Scanned directories: 0
   Scanned files: 1
   Infected files: 1
   Data scanned: 94.98 MB
   Data read: 16.59 MB (ratio 5.72:1)
   Time: 50.057 sec (0 m 50 s)
   Start Date: 2026:04:01 19:57:23
   End Date:   2026:04:01 19:58:13

Re: Axios compromised on NPM – Malicious versions drop remote access trojan

#860

Post by gbibas »

afavour wrote: post #370
bob1029 wrote: post #241

"Batteries included" ecosystems are the only persistent solution to the package manager problem. If your first party tooling contains all the functionality you typically need, it's possible you can be productive with zero 3rd party dependencies. In practice you will tend to have a few, but you won't be vendoring out critical things like HTTP, TCP, JSON, string sanitation, cryptography. These are beacons for attackers…

Irony is that Node has no need for Axios, native fetch support has been there for years, so in terms of network requests it is batteries included.

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