NPM debug and chalk packages compromised

Hi, yep I got pwned. Sorry everyone, very embarrassing.

More info:

- https://github.com/chalk/chalk/issues/656

- https://github.com/debug-js/debug/issues/1005#issuecomment-3...

Affected packages (at least the ones I know of):

- ansi-styles@6.2.2

- debug@4.4.2 (appears to have been yanked as of 8 Sep 18:09 CEST)

- chalk@5.6.1

- supports-color@10.2.1

- strip-ansi@7.1.1

- ansi-regex@6.2.1

- wrap-ansi@9.0.1

- color-convert@3.1.1

- color-name@2.0.1

- is-arrayish@0.3.3

- slice-ansi@7.1.1

- color@5.0.1

- color-string@2.1.1

- simple-swizzle@0.2.3

- supports-hyperlinks@4.1.1

- has-ansi@6.0.1

- chalk-template@1.1.1

- backslash@0.2.1

It looks and feels a bit like a targeted attack.

Will try to keep this comment updated as long as I can before the edit expires.

---

Chalk has been published over. The others remain compromised (8 Sep 17:50 CEST).

NPM has yet to get back to me. My NPM account is entirely unreachable; forgot password system does not work. I have no recourse right now but to wait.

Email came from support at npmjs dot help.

Looked legitimate at first glance. Not making excuses, just had a long week and a panicky morning and was just trying to knock something off my list of to-dos. Made the mistake of clicking the link instead of going directly to the site like I normally would (since I was mobile).

Just NPM is affected. Updates to be posted to the `/debug-js` link above.

Again, I'm so sorry.

We also caught this right away at Socket,

https://socket.dev/blog/npm-author-qix-compromised-in-major-...

While it sucks that this happened, the good thing is that the ecosystem mobilized quickly. I think these sorts of incidents really show why package scanning is essential for securing open source package repositories.

You could at least offer some kind of substantive criticism of the tool (“socket”).

Do I need any? Automated tools cannot prevent malicious code being injected. While they can make attempts to evaluate common heuristics and will catch low hanging malware, they are not fool proof against highly targeted attacks.

Either way, the parent post is clearly ambulance chasing rather than having a productive conversation, which should really be about whether or not automatically downloading and executing huge hierarchal trees of code is absolutely fucking crazy, rather than a blatant attempt to make money off an ongoing problem without actually solving anything.