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.

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Japan-based IT behemoth Fujitsu said it has discovered malware on its corporate network that may have allowed the people responsible to steal personal information from customers or other parties.

“We confirmed the presence of malware on several of our company's work computers, and as a result of an internal investigation, it was discovered that files containing personal information and customer information could be illegally taken out,” company officials wrote in a March 15 notification that went largely unnoticed until Monday. The company said it continued to “investigate the circumstances surrounding the malware's intrusion and whether information has been leaked.” There was no indication how many records were exposed or how many people may be affected.

Fujitsu employs 124,000 people worldwide and reported about $25 billion in its fiscal 2023, which ended at the end of last March. The company operates in 100 countries. Past customers include the Japanese government. Fujitsu’s revenue comes from sales of hardware such as computers, servers, and telecommunications gear, storage systems, software, and IT services.

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As generative AI systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini become more advanced, they are increasingly being put to work. Startups and tech companies are building AI agents and ecosystems on top of the systems that can complete boring chores for you : think automatically making calendar bookings and potentially buying products . But as the tools are given more freedom, it also increases the potential ways they can be attacked.

Now, in a demonstration of the risks of connected, autonomous AI ecosystems, a group of researchers has created one of what they claim are the first generative AI worms—which can spread from one system to another, potentially stealing data or deploying malware in the process. “It basically means that now you have the ability to conduct or to perform a new kind of cyberattack that hasn't been seen before,” says Ben Nassi, a Cornell Tech researcher behind the research.

Nassi, along with fellow researchers Stav Cohen and Ron Bitton, created the worm, dubbed Morris II, as a nod to the original Morris computer worm that caused chaos across the Internet in 1988. In a research paper and website shared exclusively with WIRED, the researchers show how the AI worm can attack a generative AI email assistant to steal data from emails and send spam messages—breaking some security protections in ChatGPT and Gemini in the process.

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WhatsApp will soon be granted access to explore the "full functionality" of the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware—sophisticated malware the Israeli Ministry of Defense has long guarded as a "highly sought" state secret, The Guardian reported .

Since 2019, WhatsApp has pushed for access to the NSO's spyware code after alleging that Pegasus was used to spy on 1,400 WhatsApp users over a two-week period, gaining unauthorized access to their sensitive data, including encrypted messages. WhatsApp suing the NSO, Ars noted at the time, was "an unprecedented legal action" that took "aim at the unregulated industry that sells sophisticated malware services to governments around the world."

Initially, the NSO sought to block all discovery in the lawsuit, "due to various US and Israeli restrictions," but that blanket request was denied. Then, last week, the NSO lost another fight to keep WhatsApp away from its secret code.

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Code uploaded to AI developer platform Hugging Face covertly installed backdoors and other types of malware on end-user machines, researchers from security firm JFrog said Thursday in a report that’s a likely harbinger of what’s to come.

In all, JFrog researchers said, they found roughly 100 submissions that performed hidden and unwanted actions when they were downloaded and loaded onto an end-user device. Most of the flagged machine learning models—all of which went undetected by Hugging Face—appeared to be benign proofs of concept uploaded by researchers or curious users. JFrog researchers said in an email that 10 of them were “truly malicious” in that they performed actions that actually compromised the users’ security when loaded.

Full control of user devices

One model drew particular concern because it opened a reverse shell that gave a remote device on the Internet full control of the end user’s device. When JFrog researchers loaded the model into a lab machine, the submission indeed loaded a reverse shell but took no further action.