Open Source | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered malicious libraries in the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that are designed to steal sensitive information and test stolen credit card data. Two of the packages, bitcoinlibdbfix and bitcoinlib-dev, masquerade as fixes for recent issues detected in a legitimate Python module called bitcoinlib, according to ReversingLabs . A third package discovered by Socket, disgrasya, contained a fully automated carding script targeting WooCommerce stores. The packages attracted hundreds of downloads before being taken down, according to statistics from pepy.tech - bitcoinlibdbfix - 1,101 downloads bitcoinlib-dev - 735 downloads disgrasya - 37,217 downloads "The malicious libraries both attempt a similar attack, overwriting the legitimate 'clw cli' command with malicious code that attempts to exfiltrate sensitive database files," ReversingLabs said. In an interesting twist, the authors of the counterfeit libraries are s...

The cascading supply chain attack that initially targeted Coinbase before becoming more widespread to single out users of the "tj-actions/changed-files" GitHub Action has been traced further back to the theft of a personal access token ( PAT ) related to SpotBugs. "The attackers obtained initial access by taking advantage of the GitHub Actions workflow of SpotBugs, a popular open-source tool for static analysis of bugs in code," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in an update this week. "This enabled the attackers to move laterally between SpotBugs repositories, until obtaining access to reviewdog." There is evidence to suggest that the malicious activity began as far back as late November 2024, although the attack against Coinbase did not take place until March 2025. Unit 42 said its investigation began with the knowledge that reviewdog's GitHub Action was compromised due to a leaked PAT associated with the project's maintainer. This subsequen...

There's a virtuous cycle in technology that pushes the boundaries of what's being built and how it's being used. A new technology development emerges and captures the world's attention. People start experimenting and discover novel applications, use cases, and approaches to maximize the innovation's potential. These use cases generate significant value, fueling demand for the next iteration of the innovation, and in turn, a new wave of innovators create the next generation of use cases, driving further advancements. Containerization has become the foundation of modern, cloud-native software development, supporting new use cases and approaches to building resilient, scalable, and portable applications. It also holds the keys to the next software delivery innovation, simultaneously necessitating the evolution to secure-by-design, continuously-updated software and serving as the means to get there. Below, I'll talk through some of the innovations that led to our containerized r...

A newly released report by cybersecurity firm CTM360 reveals a large-scale scam operation utilizing fake news websites—known as Baiting News Sites (BNS)—to deceive users into online investment fraud across 50 countries. These BNS pages are made to look like real news outlets: CNN, BBC, CNBC, or regional media. They publish fake stories that feature public figures, central banks, or financial brands, all claiming to back new ways to earn passive income. The goal? Build trust quickly and steer readers toward professional-looking scam platforms like Trap10, Solara Vynex, or Eclipse Earn. Scammers use sponsored ads on Google, Meta, and blog networks to push traffic to these sites. Ads often carry clickbait headlines—"You won't believe what a prominent public figure just revealed"—paired with official photos or national flags to make them feel legit. Clicking the ad directs users to a fake article, which then redirects them to a fraudulent trading platform. Many of these scams follow a...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered several cryptocurrency packages on the npm registry that have been hijacked to siphon sensitive information such as environment variables from compromised systems. "Some of these packages have lived on npmjs.com for over 9 years, and provide legitimate functionality to blockchain developers," Sonatype researcher Ax Sharma said . "However, [...] the latest versions of each of these packages were laden with obfuscated scripts." The affected packages and their hijacked versions are listed below - country-currency-map (2.1.8) bnb-javascript-sdk-nobroadcast (2.16.16) @bithighlander/bitcoin-cash-js-lib (5.2.2) eslint-config-travix (6.3.1) @crosswise-finance1/sdk-v2 (0.1.21) @keepkey/device-protocol (7.13.3) @veniceswap/uikit (0.65.34) @veniceswap/eslint-config-pancake (1.6.2) babel-preset-travix (1.2.1) @travix/ui-themes (1.1.5) @coinmasters/types (4.8.16) Analysis of these packages by the software supply chain ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two malicious packages on the npm registry that are designed to infect another locally installed package, underscoring the continued evolution of software supply chain attacks targeting the open-source ecosystem. The packages in question are ethers-provider2 and ethers-providerz , with the former downloaded 73 times to date since it was published on March 15, 2025. The second package, likely removed by the malware author themselves, did not attract any downloads. "They were simple downloaders whose malicious payload was cleverly hidden," ReversingLabs researcher Lucija Valentić said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The interesting part lay in their second stage, which would 'patch' the legitimate npm package ethers , installed locally, with a new file containing the malicious payload. That patched file would ultimately serve a reverse shell." The development marks a new escalation of threat actors...

The supply chain attack involving the GitHub Action "tj-actions/changed-files" started as a highly-targeted attack against one of Coinbase's open-source projects, before evolving into something more widespread in scope. "The payload was focused on exploiting the public CI/CD flow of one of their open source projects – agentkit, probably with the purpose of leveraging it for further compromises," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a report. "However, the attacker was not able to use Coinbase secrets or publish packages." The incident came to light on March 14, 2025, when it was found that "tj-actions/changed-files" was compromised to inject code that leaked sensitive secrets from repositories that ran the workflow. It has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2025-30066 (CVSS score: 8.6). According to Endor Labs, 218 GitHub repositories are estimated to have exposed their secrets due to the supply chain attack, and a majority of the leak...

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as ScarCruft is said to have been behind a never-before-seen Android surveillance tool named KoSpy targeting Korean and English-speaking users. Lookout, which shared details of the malware campaign, said the earliest versions date back to March 2022. The most recent samples were flagged in March 2024. It's not clear how successful these efforts were. "KoSpy can collect extensive data, such as SMS messages, call logs, location, files, audio, and screenshots via dynamically loaded plugins," the company said in an analysis. The malicious artifacts masquerade as utility applications on the official Google Play Store, using the names File Manager, Phone Manager, Smart Manager, Software Update Utility, and Kakao Security to trick unsuspecting users into infecting their own devices. All the identified apps offer the promised functionality to avoid raising suspicion while stealthily deploying spyware-related components in the backg...

Two high-severity security flaws have been disclosed in the open-source ruby-saml library that could allow malicious actors to bypass Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) authentication protections. SAML is an XML-based markup language and open-standard used for exchanging authentication and authorization data between parties, enabling features like single sign-on (SSO), which allows individuals to use a single set of credentials to access multiple sites, services, and apps. The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2025-25291 and CVE-2025-25292 , carry a CVSS score of 8.8 out of 10.0. They affect the following versions of the library - < 1.12.4 >= 1.13.0, < 1.18.0 Both the shortcomings stem from how both REXML and Nokogiri parse XML differently, causing the two parsers to generate entirely different document structures from the same XML input This parser differential allows an attacker to be able to execute a Signature Wrapping attack, leading to an authentication by...

Meta has warned that a security vulnerability impacting the FreeType open-source font rendering library may have been exploited in the wild. The vulnerability has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2025-27363 , and carries a CVSS score of 8.1, indicating high severity. Described as an out-of-bounds write flaw, it could be exploited to achieve remote code execution when parsing certain font files. "An out-of-bounds write exists in FreeType versions 2.13.0 and below when attempting to parse font subglyph structures related to TrueType GX and variable font files," the company said in an advisory. "The vulnerable code assigns a signed short value to an unsigned long and then adds a static value causing it to wrap around and allocate too small of a heap buffer. The code then writes up to 6 signed long integers out of bounds relative to this buffer. This may result in arbitrary code execution." The company did not share any specifics on how the shortcoming is be...

Cybersecurity researchers are alerting of an ongoing malicious campaign targeting the Go ecosystem with typosquatted modules that are designed to deploy loader malware on Linux and Apple macOS systems. "The threat actor has published at least seven packages impersonating widely used Go libraries, including one (github[.]com/shallowmulti/hypert) that appears to target financial-sector developers," Socket researcher Kirill Boychenko said in a new report. "These packages share repeated malicious filenames and consistent obfuscation techniques, suggesting a coordinated threat actor capable of pivoting rapidly." While all of them continue to be available on the official package repository, their corresponding GitHub repositories barring "github[.]com/ornatedoctrin/layout" are no longer accessible. The list of offending Go packages is below - shallowmulti/hypert (github.com/shallowmulti/hypert) shadowybulk/hypert (github.com/shadowybulk/hypert) belate...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a malicious Python library on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that facilitates unauthorized music downloads from music streaming service Deezer. The package in question is automslc, which has been downloaded over 104,000 times to date. First published in May 2019, it remains available on PyPI as of writing. "Although automslc, which has been downloaded over 100,000 times, purports to offer music automation and metadata retrieval, it covertly bypasses Deezer's access restrictions by embedding hardcoded credentials and communicating with an external command-and-control (C2) server," Socket security researcher Kirill Boychenko said in a report published today. Specifically, the package is designed to log into the French music streaming platform via user-supplied and hard-coded credentials, gather track-related metadata, and download full audio files in violation of Deezer's API terms. The package also periodicall...

Imagine you're considering a new car for your family. Before making a purchase, you evaluate its safety ratings, fuel efficiency, and reliability. You might even take it for a test drive to ensure it meets your needs. The same approach should be applied to software and hardware products before integrating them into an organization's environment. Just as you wouldn't buy a car without knowing its safety features, you shouldn't deploy software without understanding the risks it introduces. The Rising Threat of Supply Chain Attacks Cybercriminals have recognized that instead of attacking an organization head-on, they can infiltrate through the software supply chain—like slipping counterfeit parts into an assembly line. According to the 2024 Sonatype State of the Software Supply Chain report , attackers are infiltrating open-source ecosystems at an alarming rate, with over 512,847 malicious packages detected last year alone—a 156% increase from the previous year. Traditional sec...

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered two malicious machine learning (ML) models on Hugging Face that leveraged an unusual technique of "broken" pickle files to evade detection. "The pickle files extracted from the mentioned PyTorch archives revealed the malicious Python content at the beginning of the file," ReversingLabs researcher Karlo Zanki said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "In both cases, the malicious payload was a typical platform-aware reverse shell that connects to a hard-coded IP address." The approach has been dubbed nullifAI, as it involves clearcut attempts to sidestep existing safeguards put in place to identify malicious models. The Hugging Face repositories have been listed below - glockr1/ballr7 who-r-u0000/0000000000000000000000000000000000000 It's believed that the models are more of a proof-of-concept (PoC) than an active supply chain attack scenario. The pickle serialization format, used commonly for dis...

Taiwan has become the latest country to ban government agencies from using Chinese startup DeepSeek's Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform, citing security risks. "Government agencies and critical infrastructure should not use DeepSeek, because it endangers national information security," according to a statement released by Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs, per Radio Free Asia . "DeepSeek AI service is a Chinese product. Its operation involves cross-border transmission, and information leakage and other information security concerns." DeepSeek's Chinese origins have prompted authorities from various countries to look into the service's use of personal data. Last week, it was blocked in Italy, citing a lack of information regarding its data handling practices. Several companies have also prohibited access to the chatbot over similar risks. The chatbot has captured much of the mainstream attention over the past few weeks for the fact tha...