In today’s cybersecurity news…
HTTP client introduces malicious dependency
Axios, a widely used HTTP client library on npm, was hijacked by threat actors to introduce a remote-access trojan into two releases. Google’s Threat Intelligence Group chief analyst John Hultquist attributed the attack the the North Korean APT UNC1069. Axios is downloaded roughly 100 million times a week. The attackers were able to hijack the npm account of Axios’s maintainer, change the account email, and lock them out. Rather than change the Axios code directly, they added a malicious dependency, manually pushing through npm’s CLI rather than the project’s GitHub Actions pipeline to avoid detection. Researchers at StepSecurity noted this attack showed significant planning and sophistication, with separate payloads ready for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Check out the show notes for details on the affected versions.
TeamPCP testing the open source supply chain
In more bad news for all things open source, researchers at Wiz released a report on the activities of TeamPCP. We covered the group’s attack on the LLM proxy library LiteLLM last week. Wiz observed the group seeking to quickly validate stolen secrets from supply chain attacks. In the case of its malware injection on Trivy, TeamPCP was seen validating stolen data within hours, followed by AWS discovery operations against validated secrets in less than a day. Researchers told Infosecurity Magazine that TeamPCP has been seen “explicitly collaborating” with the extortion group Lapsus$ and other ransomware organizations, serving as an initial access broker clearinghouse.
Claude source code leaked
Solayer Labs intern Chaofan Shou posted on X that Anthropic seemed to have published a JavaScript source map file for Claude Code on its public npm registry. This source file was quickly archived and spread across GitHub. Anthropic acknowledged the leak, saying it was the result of human error, not malicious activity. The file revealed how Claude Code limits “context entropy” with a three-layer memory architecture and provides details on a background daemon mode called KAIROS. It also gives details on Anthropics’ internal model roadmap and current development milestones, and provides a prompt for an “undercover mode” to stealthily use Claude Code for public open-source contributions.
A call to secure quantum computing supply chains
We’re seeing continuing signs that everyone is getting ready for the advent of quantum computing. The most recent example, the Financial Times reports that a US delegation will push to shore up the security and stability of the quantum computing supply chain at this week’s meeting of the Quantum Development Group in London. This will look to secure access to rare earth metals and get ahead of other material constraints needed for this emerging technology. US chief technology officer Ethan Klein said he hopes to align on policy with European allies on these initiatives. This comes after the US suspended the US-UK “technology prosperity deal” back in September, which had previously served as a cooperative research framework for emerging tech like AI and quantum computing.
(FT)
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Italy fines finance giant for “personal data security” failures
The Italian Data Protection Authority fined one of Italy’s largest financial firms, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, €31.8 million, citing “serious shortcomings in personal data security, due to the inadequacy of the technical and organizational measures adopted.” This follows a 3-year investigation into the firm, which discovered employees improperly accessing customer information without triggering internal control systems. While this access impacted about 3,500 customers, the investigation found these were often high-risk accounts belonging to public figures. The investigation also found the company sent incomplete breach notifications well after legally required deadlines.
Iran revives Pay2Key
As former CISA director Chris Krebs recently characterized, Iran seems to be “throwing everything against the wall” when it comes to cyber operations. The most recent examples, researchers at KELA’s Cyber Intelligence Center found evidence that the country revived its state-backed ransomware operation Pay2Key. This revival saw the group recruiting from Russian illicit forums, a move KELA characterized as “outsourcing geopolitical retribution to the global cybercrime talent pool.” Part of the strategy for Pay2Key appears to be to launch so-called pseudoransomware attacks, where the goal is to leave systems encrypted to cause chaos, or install other forms of wiper malware. Pay2Key also serves as an initial access broker for other threat actors.
Silver Fox spreads RATs across Asia
A Chinese cybercrime group that goes by a range of frankly awesome-sounding names, including Silver Fox, SwimSnake, The Great Thief of the Valley, and Void Arachne, has been spotted operating a typosquatting campaign. This attempts to spoof trusted software brands such as Surfshark, Telegram, Zoom, and Signal to install a novel AtlasCross remote access trojan. After visiting a spoofed domain, victims are prompted to download a ZIP archive that installs an AutoDesk binary, which then launches a shellcode loader for AtlasCross. Researchers say the coordinated nature of the campaign and the development of a previously unseen remote access trojan show significantly more sophistication from Silver Fox.
Dutch Finance Ministry goes offline after breach
Last week, the Dutch Ministry of Finance disclosed it suffered a data breach on March 19th. This attack didn’t impact systems used for tax collection, subsidies, or import/export regulations, but did expose data on some employees. So far no threat group is taking credit for the attack. In a statement to legislators, Minister of Finance Eelco Heinen said the ministry was forced to shutdown some systems for security reasons as of March 23rd. Heinen said about 1,600 institutions could not see account balances or use an online portal to apply for loans. Both services are available through conventional banking channels. No word on when the systems will come back online.