Malware & Threats Over 320 NPM Packages Hit by Fresh Mini Shai-Hulud Supply Chain Attack A compromised maintainer account was used to publish malicious package versions across the @antv namespace. By Ionut Arghire | May 20, 2026 (7:06 AM ET) Flipboard Reddit Whatsapp Whatsapp Email A fresh Mini Shai-Hulud supply chain attack has hit over 320 NPM packages, along with GitHub Actions and a VS Code extension, security researchers report. The NPM maintainer account âatoolâ, which has access to multiple packages across the @antv namespace, and which publishes timeago.js (1.5 million weekly downloads), was compromised and used to publish malicious package versions. The attack propagated downstream to other highly popular packages, including echarts-for-react (~1.1 million weekly downloads), âimpacting a much broader set of applications and continuous integration (CI) environments,â Microsoft warned on Tuesday. According to Socket , roughly 639 malicious versions of the compromised packages were published across âdata visualization, graphing, mapping, charting, and React component ecosystemsâ. âAcross the full Mini Shai-Hulud campaign we have tracked 1,055 versions across 502 unique packages. The campaign spans NPM, PyPI, and Composer, with NPM representing the overwhelming majority of the activity: 1,048 NPM versions across 498 unique NPM packages, plus 6 PyPI entries across 3 packages and 1 Composer package-version entry,â Socket notes. Most of the affected packages are in the @antv namespace and contain an install-time payload that triggers a multi-stage infection chain in which payloads are fetched from GitHub-hosted infrastructure. Secondary payloads designed to steal credentials and achieve persistence are also downloaded, Wiz says . Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading. âEvery compromised package carries an obfuscated payload that reads GitHub Actions runner process memory to extract masked CI/CD secrets in plaintext, harvests credentials from over 130 file paths covering AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, HashiCorp Vault, cryptocurrency wallets, and developer tools, then exfiltrates stolen data through two channels,â StepSecurity explains. As with previous Mini Shai-Hulud attacks, the harvested data is exfiltrated through GitHub repositories and through a fallback server, suggesting that the infamous hacking group TeamPCP mounted the attack. âThe payload also contains NPM registry abuse logic. It can validate npm tokens through npm registry APIs, enumerate packages maintainable by the token owner, download package tarballs, inject the malicious payload, add a preinstall hook, bump package versions, and republish modified packages under the compromised maintainerâs identity,â Socket says. Unlike the previous campaigns, however, the malware was now seen downloading and executing Python code from the attackersâ infrastructure, âeffectively providing the operators with ongoing remote execution capabilities on compromised systems,â Wiz says. StepSecurity also observed the payload dropping persistent backdoors into Claude Code, and identified over 2,200 GitHub repositories containing exfiltrated data. Microsoftâs Durabletask Python SDK was also compromised in the fresh Mini Shai-Hulud campaign, with three malicious versions uploaded to PyPI within a 35-minute window, StepSecurity says . A fresh compromise of the popular GitHub Action actions-cool/issues-helper can also be linked to this campaign, Wiz says. Related: Real-World ICS Security Tales From the Trenches Related: Virtual Event Today: Threat Detection & Incident Response Summit Related: GitHub Confirms Hack Impacting 3,800 Internal Repositories Related: Verizon DBIR 2026: Vulnerability Exploitation Overtakes Credential Theft as Top Breach Vector Written By Ionut Arghire Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek. 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A supply chain attack compromised the maintainer account 'atool' to publish malicious versions of over 320 NPM packages, primarily within the @antv namespace, including timeago.js and echarts-for-react. The packages contain an obfuscated install-time payload that steals CI/CD secrets and credentials from over 130 file paths, then exfiltrates data via GitHub repositories and a fallback server. The malware also includes logic to abuse NPM tokens to republish modified packages and has been observed downloading Python code for remote execution.