Supply Chain | Self-Replicating Worm

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Executive Snapshot Your supply chain security assumes malicious packages require manual injection by attackers. A self-replicating npm worm just compromised 796 packages with 20 million weekly downloads in 72 hours by using stolen developer tokens to automatically publish poisoned versions across the ecosystem.

Signal The worm executes during preinstall before installation completes, harvests credentials from GitHub, npm, and cloud providers, then uses those stolen tokens to infect every other package the developer maintains.

Strategic Implication A single compromised developer credential now triggers automated exponential spread through your entire dependency tree without further attacker intervention.

Action Scan all CI/CD pipelines and developer workstations for Shai-Hulud indicators today. Rotate npm tokens, GitHub PATs, and cloud credentials for any machine that installed packages after November 21 now. Disable preinstall scripts in package managers and enforce package version pinning to pre-November 21 builds this week.