Enlarge / Supply-chain attacks, like the latest PyPI discovery, insert malicious code into seemingly functional software packages used by developers. They're becoming increasingly common. (credit: Getty Images)

PyPI, a vital repository for open source developers, temporarily halted new project creation and new user registration following an onslaught of package uploads that executed malicious code on any device that installed them. Ten hours later, it lifted the suspension.

Short for the Python Package Index, PyPI is the go-to source for apps and code libraries written in the Python programming language. Fortune 500 corporations and independent developers alike rely on the repository to obtain the latest versions of code needed to make their projects run. At a little after 7 pm PT on Wednesday, the site started displaying a banner message informing visitors that the site was temporarily suspending new project creation and new user registration. The message didn’t explain why or provide an estimate of when the suspension would be lifted.

Screenshot showing temporary suspension notification. (credit: Checkmarx)

About 10 hours later, PyPI restored new project creation and new user registration. Once again, the site provided no reason for the 10-hour halt.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

GitHub is struggling to contain an ongoing attack that’s flooding the site with millions of code repositories. These repositories contain obfuscated malware that steals passwords and cryptocurrency from developer devices, researchers said.

The malicious repositories are clones of legitimate ones, making them hard to distinguish to the casual eye. An unknown party has automated a process that forks legitimate repositories, meaning the source code is copied so developers can use it in an independent project that builds on the original one. The result is millions of forks with names identical to the original one that add a payload that’s wrapped under seven layers of obfuscation. To make matters worse, some people, unaware of the malice of these imitators, are forking the forks, which adds to the flood.

Whack-a-mole

“Most of the forked repos are quickly removed by GitHub, which identifies the automation,” Matan Giladi and Gil David, researchers at security firm Apiiro, wrote Wednesday . “However, the automation detection seems to miss many repos, and the ones that were uploaded manually survive. Because the whole attack chain seems to be mostly automated on a large scale, the 1% that survive still amount to thousands of malicious repos.”

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images )

A backdoor that researchers found hiding inside open source code targeting four German companies was the work of a professional penetration tester. The tester was checking clients’ resilience against a new class of attacks that exploits public repositories used by millions of software projects worldwide. But it could have been bad. Very bad.

Dependency confusion is a new form of supply-chain attack that came to the forefront in March 2021 , when a researcher demonstrated he could use it to execute unauthorized code of his choice on networks belonging to Apple, Microsoft, and 33 other companies. The researcher, Alex Birsan, received $130,000 in bug bounties and credit for developing the new attack form.

A few weeks later, a different researcher uncovered evidence that showed that Amazon, Slack, Lyft, Zillow, and other companies had been targeted in attacks that used the same technique. The release of more than 200 malicious packages into the wild indicated the attack Birsan devised appealed to real-world threat actors.