New Wave of DPRK Attacks Uses AI-Inserted npm Malware, Fake Firms, and RATs
Apr 29, 2026
Malware / Social Engineering
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered malicious code in an npm package after a malicious package as a dependency to the project by Anthropic's Claude Opus large language model (LLM). The package in question is " @validate-sdk/v2 ," which is listed on npm as a utility software development kit (SDK) for hashing, validation, encoding/decoding, and secure random generation. However, its real functionality is to plunder sensitive secrets from the compromised environment. The package, which shows signs of being vibe-coded using generative artificial intelligence (AI), was first uploaded to the repository in October 2025. The malware campaign has been codenamed PromptMink by ReversingLabs, which linked the activity as part of a broader campaign mounted by the North Korean threat actor known as Famous Chollima (aka Shifty Corsair), which is behind the long-running Contagious Interview campaign and the fraudulent IT Worker scam . "The new malware campaign [...] inv...
