The npm Threat Landscape: Attack Surface and Mitigations (Updated July 15)

Palo Alto Unit 42 published a set of research and threat briefs (Jun–Jul 2026) highlighting an active and evolving threat landscape: npm supply‑chain attacks including wormable malware and CI/CD persistence; an RCE in Vertex AI model upload flows via bucket squatting (Pickle in the Middle); AI supply‑chain risks (phantom/phantom‑squatting domains, malicious skills on marketplaces such as OpenClaw); LLM‑assisted malware development (TuxBot v3 IoT botnet); rapid growth of The Gentlemen ransomware via an affiliate model; novel Vidar stealer campaign combining Go‑compiled loaders and DLL sideloads