You'll just end up with people running `./configure` scripts or whatever instead. The solution I've currently landed on is:
1. Audit build scripts/ proc macros for rust code (and mark with cargo-vet).
2. Have an isolated workflow for "build/test/push artifact to temporary place" (s3, github artifact, whatever). No API keys in this workflow.
3. Have another workflow that has the API keys to publish that grabs the artifact and then places it into a registry.
This creates clear separation of "code runs here" and "environment has privileges".
In my own slop-driven programming language I have build scripts declare their capabilities upfront so that you can statically reason about them (same with runtime permissions).
yeah but they can just put the dropper, etc in index.js, so that it runs at import time rather than at install time, no? i guess first-install time is often a privileged developer machine, and will execute in a "server"-like runtime such as Node, Bun, Deno. but blocking preinstall scripts is basic first aid...
Nobody is claiming this is a complete solution to security. I would call this "necessary but not sufficient". You won't get far as an engineer if you refuse to implement "necessary but not sufficient" changes because the change doesn't in and of itself one-shot the entire problem.
iirc does pnpm not allow them by default. But even if we killed them off there would still be a chance of the malware hooking into something else or only working in cli applications.
Does anyone happen to have a grep or similar that helps me check if this is showing up anywhere in the trillions of files in node_modules (or pnpm store)?
The what happened section mentions the addition of the `setup.mjs` and `Math_Symbol.js`, along with a change in `package.json` to add `"preinstall": "node setup.mjs"`, so presumably checking for any of those would be a good indication to check further.
I think npm can use chatgpt/claude for each published package to detect these types of attack? And if it sees they can restrict the package from making any changes.
aikido.dev: SAST, AI code analysis and therefore a website that uses 100% CPU and prevents scrolling.
To the point of the article: I don't know why GitHub still allows the release feature. It is complete insanity. Tar archives must be constructed manually and checked for leaked keys etc.
I am kind of surprised GitHub doesn't seem to have built a simple classifier for public repos to proactively lock the account of anyone uploading such obviously fishy things (for their own good, at least before the repo is publicly findable), so it can't be used as a rendezvous.
Surely Github's software is good enough that an intern can slop the 80/20 together in a day? It would be an actually good use of AI spending.
> I am kind of surprised GitHub doesn't seem to have built a simple classifier for public repos to proactively lock the account of anyone uploading such obviously fishy things (for their own good, at least before the repo is publicly findable), so it can't be used as a rendezvous.
Maybe that's the idea. Regards, the <insert your favourite 3 letter agency here>
> Update — August 4, 2026, 13:37 CEST: At least 868 packages (across 1381 versions) have been compromised by the worm, with a combined total of over 2 billion monthly installs at the time of writing.
This is such lazy or click baiting writing. Who cares how many installations there are per month normally? The high install numbers are almost certainly from running in CI where such secrets don’t exist. How many installs actually occur in a non CI environment and of those how many were the compromised version?
CIs having per-package installs : version ratio > 1 are fundamentally dumb idea in the first place.
In a way, this teaches us that there is something as too much reliability in an ecosystem. Specifically, Github is apparently reliable enough that its occasional outages are insufficient to kill all the companies running these dumb CI setups that redownload packages from the Internet every build - so there's no incentive to reduce waste and improve security globally.
At this point, any package adding a pre-install hook where there previously was not one should be denied and treated with extreme suspicion.
It's time pre-install / post-install hooks were killed off. Start with a moratorium on any new ones.
You'll just end up with people running `./configure` scripts or whatever instead. The solution I've currently landed on is:
1. Audit build scripts/ proc macros for rust code (and mark with cargo-vet).
2. Have an isolated workflow for "build/test/push artifact to temporary place" (s3, github artifact, whatever). No API keys in this workflow.
3. Have another workflow that has the API keys to publish that grabs the artifact and then places it into a registry.
This creates clear separation of "code runs here" and "environment has privileges".
In my own slop-driven programming language I have build scripts declare their capabilities upfront so that you can statically reason about them (same with runtime permissions).
yeah but they can just put the dropper, etc in index.js, so that it runs at import time rather than at install time, no? i guess first-install time is often a privileged developer machine, and will execute in a "server"-like runtime such as Node, Bun, Deno. but blocking preinstall scripts is basic first aid...
Nobody is claiming this is a complete solution to security. I would call this "necessary but not sufficient". You won't get far as an engineer if you refuse to implement "necessary but not sufficient" changes because the change doesn't in and of itself one-shot the entire problem.
iirc does pnpm not allow them by default. But even if we killed them off there would still be a chance of the malware hooking into something else or only working in cli applications.
Does anyone happen to have a grep or similar that helps me check if this is showing up anywhere in the trillions of files in node_modules (or pnpm store)?
The what happened section mentions the addition of the `setup.mjs` and `Math_Symbol.js`, along with a change in `package.json` to add `"preinstall": "node setup.mjs"`, so presumably checking for any of those would be a good indication to check further.
For example:
find . -type d -name node_modules -prune -exec find {} \( -name setup.mjs -o -name math_init.js -o -name Math_Symbol.js \) \; 2>/dev/null
I think npm can use chatgpt/claude for each published package to detect these types of attack? And if it sees they can restrict the package from making any changes.
aikido.dev: SAST, AI code analysis and therefore a website that uses 100% CPU and prevents scrolling.
To the point of the article: I don't know why GitHub still allows the release feature. It is complete insanity. Tar archives must be constructed manually and checked for leaked keys etc.
I got the news via https://safedep.io/keyv-npm-supply-chain-compromise/
I am kind of surprised GitHub doesn't seem to have built a simple classifier for public repos to proactively lock the account of anyone uploading such obviously fishy things (for their own good, at least before the repo is publicly findable), so it can't be used as a rendezvous.
Surely Github's software is good enough that an intern can slop the 80/20 together in a day? It would be an actually good use of AI spending.
GitHub announced this a while back:
https://github.blog/changelog/2026-07-28-npm-publish-time-ma...
> I am kind of surprised GitHub doesn't seem to have built a simple classifier for public repos to proactively lock the account of anyone uploading such obviously fishy things (for their own good, at least before the repo is publicly findable), so it can't be used as a rendezvous.
Maybe that's the idea. Regards, the <insert your favourite 3 letter agency here>
> Update — August 4, 2026, 13:37 CEST: At least 868 packages (across 1381 versions) have been compromised by the worm, with a combined total of over 2 billion monthly installs at the time of writing.
This is such lazy or click baiting writing. Who cares how many installations there are per month normally? The high install numbers are almost certainly from running in CI where such secrets don’t exist. How many installs actually occur in a non CI environment and of those how many were the compromised version?
> almost certainly from running in CI where such secrets don’t exist.
CI usually has the most privileged secrets anywhere in a company lol
CIs having per-package installs : version ratio > 1 are fundamentally dumb idea in the first place.
In a way, this teaches us that there is something as too much reliability in an ecosystem. Specifically, Github is apparently reliable enough that its occasional outages are insufficient to kill all the companies running these dumb CI setups that redownload packages from the Internet every build - so there's no incentive to reduce waste and improve security globally.