First Shai-Hulud Worm Clones Emerge

Summary

Days after TeamPCP released the Shai-Hulud worm's source code on GitHub, threat actors have begun deploying clones and variants in fresh supply chain attacks targeting NPM developers. A threat actor published four malicious NPM packages, including a direct Shai-Hulud clone called 'chalk-tempalte' and three typo-squatting packages targeting Axios users, with combined weekly downloads exceeding 2,600. Security researchers warn this marks the first phase of an upcoming wave of supply chain attacks leveraging the now-public malware code.

Full text

The first Shai-Hulud worm clones emerged only days after TeamPCP released the malware’s source code on GitHub, Ox Security reports. Shai-Hulud was first used in supply chain attacks against the open source software ecosystem in September 2025, and then again in November, in campaigns that hit hundreds of NPM packages and likely infected thousands of developers. The malware was designed to steal credentials, API keys, tokens, and other secrets from the infected machines and use them for self-propagation by injecting itself into the packages maintained by the victims and publishing malicious versions on their behalf. It re-emerged in April, in supply chain attacks attributed to the TeamPCP hacking group, which mounted several campaigns against the open source software community since March, including the Trivy, Bitwarden, Checkmarx, SAP, and TanStack incidents. Last week, several repositories containing the Shai-Hulud worm’s source code briefly appeared on GitHub, accompanied by an announcement from TeamPCP and BreachForums that encouraged miscreants to use the code in a supply chain challenge. Security researchers promptly warned of a surge in activity associated with the malware following the source code’s release, and cybercriminals were quick to adapt the worm and start using it in fresh attacks.Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading. According to Ox Security, a threat actor published four NPM packages containing infostealer malware, including one that contains the Shai-Hulud code. Dubbed ‘chalk-tempalte’, the package is a direct clone of the worm, does not use obfuscation, and implements its own command-and-control (C&C) server and private key. “By analyzing the malware’s source code, the same patterns from previous Shai-Hulud attacks are immediately recognizable, as expected. This includes uploading stolen credentials to a new GitHub repository,” Ox says. The other three packages published by the threat actor, all using typo-squatting to infect Axios users, are different from Shai-Hulud, and one of them ensnares the infected machines into a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) botnet. The four packages, ‘@deadcode09284814/axios-util’, ‘axois-utils’, ‘chalk-tempalte’, and ‘color-style-utils’, have a combined weekly download count of over 2,600. “We’re now seeing a single actor with multiple techniques and infostealer types spreading malicious code onto NPM, as it’s just the first phase of an upcoming wave of supply chain attacks coming,” Ox warns. 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Indicators of Compromise

• malware — Shai-Hulud
• malware — chalk-tempalte
• malware — axois-utils
• malware — axios-util
• malware — color-style-utils

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