Malicious versions of Nx and some supporting plugins were published

If you can execute code on some machine without having access to that machine, then it's RCE. Whether you gain RCE through an exploit in a bad network protocol or through tricking the user into running your code (i.e. this attack) is merely a delivery mechanism. It's still RCE

Not exactly. A supply chain attack can be used to deliver RCE enabling payloads such as a reverse shell, but in itself, it is not considered RCE.

RCE implies ability to remotely execute arbitrary code on an affected system at will.

> A supply chain attack can be used to deliver RCE enabling payloads such as a reverse shell, but in itself, it is not considered RCE.

Yes, as I tried to make clear above, these are orthogonal. The supply chain attack is NOT an RCE, it's a delivery mechanism. The RCE is the execution of the attacker's code, regardless how it got there.

> RCE implies ability to remotely execute arbitrary code on an affected system at will.

We'll have to disagree on this one, unless one of us can cite a definition from a source we can agree on. Yes frequently RCE is something an attacker can push without requiring the user to do something, but I don't think that changes the nature of the fact that you are achieving remote code execution. Whether the user triggers the execution of your code by `npm install`ing your infected package or whether the attacker triggers it by sending an exploitative packet to a vulnerable network service isn't a big enough nuance in my opinion to make it not be RCE. From that perspective, the user had to start the vulnerable service in the first place, or even turn the computer on, so it still requires some user (not the attacker) action before it's vulnerable.