Smart Contracts | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A threat actor with ties to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) has been observed leveraging the EtherHiding technique to distribute malware and enable cryptocurrency theft, marking the first time a state-sponsored hacking group has embraced the method. The activity has been attributed by Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) to a threat cluster it tracks as UNC5342 , which is also known as CL-STA-0240 (Palo Alto Networks Unit 42), DeceptiveDevelopment (ESET), DEV#POPPER (Securonix), Famous Chollima (CrowdStrike), Gwisin Gang (DTEX), Tenacious Pungsan (Datadog), and Void Dokkaebi (Trend Micro). The attack wave is part of a long-running campaign codenamed Contagious Interview , wherein the attackers approach potential targets on LinkedIn by posing as recruiters or hiring managers, and trick them into running malicious code under the pretext of a job assessment after shifting the conversation to Telegram or Discord. The end goal of these efforts is to ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two new malicious packages on the npm registry that make use of smart contracts for the Ethereum blockchain to carry out malicious actions on compromised systems, signaling the trend of threat actors constantly on the lookout for new ways to distribute malware and fly under the radar. "The two npm packages abused smart contracts to conceal malicious commands that installed downloader malware on compromised systems," ReversingLabs researcher Lucija Valentić said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The packages, both uploaded to npm in July 2025 and no longer available for download, are listed below - colortoolsv2 (7 downloads) mimelib2 (1 download) The software supply chain security firm said the libraries are part of a larger and sophisticated campaign impacting both npm and GitHub, tricking unsuspecting developers into downloading and running them. While the packages themselves make no effort to conceal their malici...

Cybersecurity researchers have revealed several malicious packages on the npm registry that have been found impersonating the Nomic Foundation's Hardhat tool in order to steal sensitive data from developer systems. "By exploiting trust in open source plugins, attackers have infiltrated these platforms through malicious npm packages, exfiltrating critical data such as private keys, mnemonics, and configuration details," the Socket research team said in an analysis. Hardhat is a development environment for Ethereum software, incorporating various components for editing, compiling, debugging and deploying smart contracts and decentralized apps (dApps). The list of identified counterfeit packages is as follows - nomicsfoundations @nomisfoundation/hardhat-configure installedpackagepublish @nomisfoundation/hardhat-config @monicfoundation/hardhat-config @nomicsfoundation/sdk-test @nomicsfoundation/hardhat-config @nomicsfoundation/web3-sdk @nomicsfoundation/sdk-...

Did you know it's now possible to build blockchain applications, known also as decentralized applications (or "dApps" for short) in native Python? Blockchain development has traditionally required learning specialized languages, creating a barrier for many developers… until now. AlgoKit , an all-in-one development toolkit for Algorand, enables developers to build blockchain applications in pure Python. This article will walk you through the benefits of building blockchain applications, why Python is an ideal choice for dApp development, how to set up your blockchain development environment, and how to start building secure blockchain applications in native Python.  Why build blockchain applications?  Blockchain application development goes far beyond creating a decentralized database and peer-to-peer transactions. It unlocks a new level of trust, security, and efficiency for various applications. Guarantee tamper-proof records: Blockchain creates an immutable and transpar...