Get fresh insights, pro tips, and thought starters–only the best of posts for you.
Malicious PyPI packages and malicious npm packages impersonating Paysafe, Skrill, and Neteller SDKs stole developer credentials instead of providing legitimate payment functionality. The campaign highlights how software supply chain attacks can compromise developer environments, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud infrastructure through trusted open-source dependencies.
Developers trust package repositories every day to accelerate application development. Unfortunately, attackers know that trust is an easy target. A recent campaign involving malicious PyPI packages and malicious npm packages demonstrates how a seemingly legitimate SDK can become a powerful credential-stealing tool, putting developer workstations, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud environments at risk.
According to BleepingComputer, researchers discovered multiple malicious packages published to both npm and PyPI that impersonated official SDKs for Paysafe, Skrill, and Neteller. Rather than providing genuine payment functionality, the packages silently harvested sensitive credentials while presenting developers with APIs that appeared to work normally. The incident is another reminder that a software supply chain attack doesn’t always exploit vulnerable code—it can begin with installing the wrong dependency.
Researchers identified at least 17 malicious packages distributed across npm and PyPI. The attackers relied on brand impersonation and typosquatting to convince developers they were installing legitimate payment SDKs.
The fake libraries exposed familiar APIs that mimicked the expected developer experience. Applications using these packages appeared to function because the SDKs returned fabricated success responses instead of communicating with legitimate Paysafe services. This reduced the likelihood that developers would immediately suspect anything was wrong.
Behind the scenes, however, the packages searched infected systems for valuable secrets that could enable further compromise.
The malware targeted information including:
The JavaScript and Python variants behaved differently once installed.
The malicious npm packages attempted data exfiltration only after detecting a Paysafe-related API key and when the fake SDK was actively called by an application. This conditional behavior helped reduce unnecessary network traffic and made the malware less obvious during casual testing.
The malicious PyPI packages, by contrast, activated their credential-stealing routines immediately during initialization. They did not require the presence of a Paysafe API key, allowing them to collect sensitive information from a much broader range of environments.
Researchers also observed simple anti-analysis techniques. The malware attempted to avoid execution in environments that resembled sandboxes by checking system characteristics such as hostname patterns and available CPU cores before proceeding.
Open-source package ecosystems have become essential to modern software development. Every dependency added to a project extends the organization’s trust boundary, making package repositories attractive targets for attackers.
Compromising developer environments can provide access far beyond a single workstation. Stolen credentials may allow attackers to:
Unlike traditional malware campaigns aimed at end users, attacks involving malicious PyPI packages often target organizations that hold highly privileged credentials capable of affecting thousands of downstream customers.
For enterprises building payment applications or handling financial transactions, the consequences can extend beyond developer systems to production workloads and customer-facing services.
Researchers recommend that organizations which imported or executed any of the identified packages immediately:
Although Unified Endpoint Management cannot prevent developers from accidentally installing every malicious dependency, it plays an important role in reducing the impact of a software supply chain attack.
With Hexnode UEM, administrators can enforce endpoint security configurations, manage patches and updates, control app deployment, and use supported remote actions for remediation. For confirmed threats, Hexnode XDR can isolate devices, quarantine files, and terminate malicious processes.
For organizations requiring deeper security visibility, Hexnode XDR provides threat detection, investigation, and response capabilities from a unified console. Security teams can identify suspicious endpoint behavior, investigate malicious processes, correlate security events, and respond by isolating compromised endpoints or terminating harmful processes before attackers can expand their foothold.
Combined with compliance-driven conditional access and device trust integrations, these controls can help restrict access to protected applications from unmanaged or non-compliant devices.
The fake Paysafe and Skrill SDK campaign demonstrates that attackers increasingly target developer trust instead of software vulnerabilities. By disguising malware as legitimate dependencies, they can steal secrets that unlock source code, cloud infrastructure, and production environments.
As organizations continue to rely on open-source ecosystems, protecting developer endpoints becomes just as important as scanning application code. Dependency monitoring, credential rotation, endpoint visibility, CI/CD hardening, and strong endpoint management together provide multiple layers of defense against malicious packages before they become enterprise-wide compromises.
Strengthen endpoint security, govern developer devices, and detect credential theft with Hexnode UEM and XDR.
Start Your Free Trial!Developers should verify the publisher, review the project’s repository and activity, avoid typosquatted package names, and use dependency scanning tools. Organizations can further reduce risk by maintaining approved package repositories and enforcing package verification policies.
A software supply chain attack targets trusted software components, such as open-source packages, build tools, or update mechanisms, to compromise downstream users. Attackers use these trusted channels to distribute malicious code and steal data or gain unauthorized access.
