Shai-Hulud 2.0: Aggressive & Automated, One Of Fastest Spreading NPM Supply Chain Attacks Ever Observed
Essential information
- Published
- 27/11/2025 03:00
- Modified
- 21/12/2025 18:07
- Tags
- 2025-11-27 automation backdoor credential harvesting github npm shai-hulud 2.0 supply chain attack worm
- Related entities
- 4 observables, 17 techniques (mitre), 1 malware
Description
In November 2025, security researchers identified Shai-Hulud 2.0, an aggressive and automated supply-chain attack targeting the npm ecosystem. This second wave of the Shai-Hulud campaign demonstrated unprecedented automation and propagation speed, compromising hundreds of npm packages within hours. The malware behaves like a worm, automatically harvesting credentials and cloud secrets, and spreading to new npm accounts. It uses GitHub Actions as a persistent backdoor and creates public repositories for exfiltration. The attack represents a significant escalation in supply-chain attack sophistication, affecting major projects and organizations, and resulting in tens of thousands of attacker-created GitHub repositories.