The npm ecosystem is reeling from the second wave of the aggressive "Shai-Hulud 2.0" supply chain attack, active since November 2025. This sophisticated campaign compromised hundreds of packages, impacting over 25,000 GitHub repositories.

The self-propagating worm, which previously stole cryptocurrency, now focuses on a broader credential theft operation. It leverages the preinstall script to execute a malicious payload, often using the Bun runtime as an evasion technique. The malware sweeps for GitHub tokens, cloud credentials (AWS, GCP, Azure), and other secrets, exfiltrating them to public attacker-controlled GitHub repositories.

The attack is worm-like, using stolen credentials to infect other packages maintained by the victim developer, underscoring the severe risk of relying on vast, complex open-source dependency trees. Developers must rotate all secrets and strictly pin dependency versions to safe releases.