supply chain attack | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a supply chain attack targeting a Microsoft Visual Studio Code (VS Code) extension called Ethcode that has been installed a little over 6,000 times. The compromise, per ReversingLabs , occurred via a GitHub pull request that was opened by a user named Airez299 on June 17, 2025. First released by 7finney in 2022, Ethcode is a VS Code extension that's used to deploy and execute solidity smart contracts in Ethereum Virtual Machine ( EVM )-based blockchains. An EVM is a decentralized computation engine that's designed to run smart contracts on the Ethereum network. According to the supply chain security company, the GitHub project received its last non-malicious update on September 6, 2024. That changed last month when Airez299 opened a pull request with the message "Modernize codebase with viem integration and testing framework." The user claimed to have added a new testing framework with Mocha integration and contract testin...

If you didn't hear about  Iranian hackers breaching US water facilities, it's because they only managed to control a single pressure station serving 7,000 people. What made this attack noteworthy wasn't its scale, but how easily the hackers gained access — by simply using the manufacturer's default password "1111." This narrow escape prompted  CISA to urge manufacturers to eliminate default credentials entirely, citing "years of evidence" that these preset passwords remain one of the most exploited weaknesses. While we wait for manufacturers to implement better security practices, the responsibility falls on IT teams. Whether you manage critical infrastructure or a standard business network, allowing unchanged manufacturer passwords in your environment is like rolling out the red carpet for attackers. Here's what you need to know about default passwords — why they persist, their business and technical consequences, and how manufacturers can imple...

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a fresh batch of malicious npm packages linked to the ongoing Contagious Interview operation originating from North Korea. According to Socket , the ongoing supply chain attack involves 35 malicious packages that were uploaded from 24 npm accounts. These packages have been collectively downloaded over 4,000 times. The complete list of the JavaScript libraries is below - react-plaid-sdk sumsub-node-websdk vite-plugin-next-refresh vite-plugin-purify nextjs-insight vite-plugin-svgn node-loggers react-logs reactbootstraps framer-motion-ext serverlog-dispatch mongo-errorlog next-log-patcher vite-plugin-tools pixel-percent test-topdev-logger-v1 test-topdev-logger-v3 server-log-engine logbin-nodejs vite-loader-svg struct-logger flexible-loggers beautiful-plugins chalk-config jsonpacks jsonspecific jsonsecs util-buffers blur-plugins proc-watch node-orm-mongoose prior-config use-videos lucide-node, and router-parse ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a now-patched security flaw in LangChain's LangSmith platform that could be exploited to capture sensitive data, including API keys and user prompts. The vulnerability, which carries a CVSS score of 8.8 out of a maximum of 10.0, has been codenamed AgentSmith by Noma Security. LangSmith is an observability and evaluation platform that allows users to develop, test, and monitor large language model (LLM) applications, including those built using LangChain. The service also offers what's called a LangChain Hub , which acts as a repository for all publicly listed prompts, agents, and models. "This newly identified vulnerability exploited unsuspecting users who adopt an agent containing a pre-configured malicious proxy server uploaded to 'Prompt Hub,'" researchers Sasi Levi and Gal Moyal said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Once adopted, the malicious proxy discreetly intercepted all user communicatio...

Former members tied to the Black Basta ransomware operation have been observed sticking to their tried-and-tested approach of email bombing and Microsoft Teams phishing to establish persistent access to target networks. "Recently, attackers have introduced Python script execution alongside these techniques, using cURL requests to fetch and deploy malicious payloads," ReliaQuest said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The development is a sign that the threat actors are continuing to pivot and regroup, despite the Black Basta brand suffering a huge blow and a decline after the public leak of its internal chat logs earlier this February. The cybersecurity company said half of the Teams phishing attacks that were observed between February and May 2025 originated from onmicrosoft[.]com domains, and that breached domains accounted for 42% of the attacks during the same period. The latter is a lot more stealthy and allows threat actors to impersonate legitimate traffi...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a supply chain attack targeting over a dozen packages associated with GlueStack to deliver malware. The malware, introduced via a change to "lib/commonjs/index.js," allows an attacker to run shell commands, take screenshots, and upload files to infected machines, Aikido Security told The Hacker News, stating these packages collectively account for nearly 1 million weekly downloads. The unauthorized access could then be used to perform various follow-on actions like mining cryptocurrency, stealing sensitive information, and even shutting down services. Aikido said the first package compromise was detected on June 6, 2025, at 9:33 p.m. GMT.  The list of the impacted packages and the affected versions is below - @gluestack-ui/utils version 0.1.16 (101 Downloads) @gluestack-ui/utils version 0.1.17 (176 Downloads) @react-native-aria/button version 0.2.11 (174 Downloads) @react-native-aria/checkbox version 0.2.11 (577 Downloads) @re...

Several malicious packages have been uncovered across the npm, Python, and Ruby package repositories that drain funds from cryptocurrency wallets, erase entire codebases after installation, and exfiltrate Telegram API tokens, once again demonstrating the variety of supply chain threats lurking in open-source ecosystems. The findings come from multiple reports published by Checkmarx, ReversingLabs, Safety, and Socket in recent weeks. The list of identified packages across these platforms are listed below - Socket noted that the two malicious gems were published by a threat actor under the aliases Bùi nam, buidanhnam, and si_mobile merely days after Vietnam ordered a nationwide ban on the Telegram messaging app late last month for allegedly not cooperating with the government to tackle illicit activities related to fraud, drug trafficking, and terrorism. "These gems silently exfiltrate all data sent to the Telegram API by redirecting traffic through a command-and-control (C2...

The U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has levied sanctions against a Philippines-based company named Funnull Technology Inc. and its administrator Liu Lizhi for providing infrastructure to conduct romance baiting scams that led to massive cryptocurrency losses. The Treasury accused the Taguig-headquartered company of enabling thousands of websites involved in virtual currency investment scams that caused Americans to lose billions of dollars annually. "Funnull has directly facilitated several of these schemes, resulting in over $200 million in U.S. victim-reported losses," the agency said in a press release. The average loss is estimated to be over $150,000 per individual. Funnull, also called Fang Neng CDN (funnull[.]io, funnull[.]com, funnull[.]app, and funnull[.]buzz), first attracted the attention of the cybersecurity community in June 2024 after it was implicated in the supply chain attack of the widely-used Polyfill[.]io J...

The threat actors behind the DragonForce ransomware gained access to an unnamed Managed Service Provider's (MSP) SimpleHelp remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool, and then leveraged it to exfiltrate data and drop the locker on multiple endpoints. It's believed that the attackers exploited a trio of security flaws in SimpleHelp (CVE-2024-57727, CVE-2024-57728, and CVE-2024-57726) that were disclosed in January 2025 to access the MSP's SimpleHelp deployment, according to an analysis from Sophos. The cybersecurity company said it was alerted to the incident following a suspicious installation of a SimpleHelp installer file, pushed via a legitimate SimpleHelp RMM instance that's hosted and operated by the MSP for their customers. The threat actors have also been found to leverage their access through the MSP's RMM instance to collect information from different customer environments about device names and configuration, users, and network connections. Altho...

As many as 60 malicious npm packages have been discovered in the package registry with malicious functionality to harvest hostnames, IP addresses, DNS servers, and user directories to a Discord-controlled endpoint. The packages, published under three different accounts, come with an install‑time script that's triggered during npm install, Socket security researcher Kirill Boychenko said in a report published last week. The libraries have been collectively downloaded over 3,000 times. "The script targets Windows, macOS, or Linux systems, and includes basic sandbox‑evasion checks, making every infected workstation or continuous‑integration node a potential source of valuable reconnaissance," the software supply chain security firm said . The names of the three accounts, each of which published 20 packages within an 11-day time period, are listed below. The accounts no longer exist on npm - bbbb335656 cdsfdfafd1232436437, and  sdsds656565 The malicious code, per So...

The official site for RVTools has been hacked to serve a compromised installer for the popular VMware environment reporting utility. "Robware.net and RVTools.com are currently offline. We are working expeditiously to restore service and appreciate your patience," the company said in a statement posted on its website. "Robware.net and RVTools.com are the only authorized and supported websites for RVTools software. Do not search for or download purported RVTools software from any other websites or sources." The development comes after security researcher Aidan Leon revealed that an infected version of the installer downloaded from the website was being used to sideload a malicious DLL that turned out to be a known malware loader called Bumblebee . It's currently not known how long the trojanized version of RVTools had been available for download and how many had installed it before the site was taken offline. In the interim, users are recommended to veri...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that purports to be an application related to the Solana blockchain, but contains malicious functionality to steal source code and developer secrets. The package, named solana-token, is no longer available for download from PyPI, but not before it was downloaded 761 times . It was first published to PyPI in early April 2024, albeit with an entirely different version numbering scheme. "When installed, the malicious package attempts to exfiltrate source code and developer secrets from the developer's machine to a hard-coded IP address," ReversingLabs researcher Karlo Zanki said in a report shared with The Hacker News. In particular, the package is designed to copy and exfiltrate the source code contained in all the files in the Python execution stack under the guise of a blockchain function named "register_node()." This unusual behavior suggests that...