Shai-Hulud Supply Chain Attack: Worm Used to Steal Secrets, 180+ NPM Packages Hit

SecurityWeek reports that the Shai-Hulud supply chain attack hit more than 180 NPM packages, using a self-replicating worm to harvest secrets, publish them to GitHub, and push private repositories into public view. The intrusion began on 14 September 2025, with fewer than a dozen malicious packages, and by 16 September more than 180 packages had been affected, with over 40 developer accounts compromised and more than 700 malicious package versions published.

Some affected packages include @ctrl/tinycolor, ngx-bootstrap, ng2-file-upload, and several CrowdStrike NPM packages, which were removed after discovery. The malware injects a post-install script to fetch the TruffleHog secret-scanning tool, harvest environment variables and cloud credentials, and, if GitHub tokens are found, publish them to public repositories and dump secrets via a botched webhook.

Wiz notes that the worm also uses identified NPM tokens to enumerate and update packages, effectively propagating across maintained packages, while JFrog flags variations that even attempt to steal Azure credentials, according to the report.