Record Supply Chain Attack: 150,000+ Malicious npm Packages Flooded Registry for Token Farming Rewards

In one of the largest open-source supply chain incidents on record, Amazon Inspector researchers uncovered over 150,000 malicious npm packages linked to a coordinated tea[.]xyz token farming campaign. The attackers used self-replicating automation to create packages with no legitimate functionality, embedding tea.yaml files that tie each package to blockchain wallets in order to inflate contribution metrics.

Rather than distributing malware, the aim was to monetise the reward system by polluting the npm ecosystem at unprecedented scale, a new type of monetisation-driven threat.

According to Amazon Inspector, a hybrid detection approach combining advanced rules with AI insights helped identify the activity, with a new AI-enhanced detection rule deployed on 24 October 2025 and suspicious patterns flagged within days; by 7 November 2025 thousands of packages were identified and by 12 November 2025 more than 150,000 had been uncovered.

The report, produced in collaboration with OpenSSF, highlights indicators such as automated self-cloning, packages containing tea.yaml files, and rapid publishing bursts from multiple accounts, and notes the broader risk of registry pollution and dependency-based supply chain threats even when no functional code is present.