Bad Dependencies Podcast

In this episode of Bad Dependencies, we dive into the "wormy" chaos of the latest supply chain attack hitting the JavaScript ecosystem. Join researcher Charlie Eriksen as he breaks down how the threat actor group TeamPCP compromised the widely-used TanStack ecosystem and successfully pivoted into Mistral AI. We explore the technical "perfection" of this attack: a lethal combination of pull_request_target misconfigurations, GitHub Actions cache poisoning, and OIDC signature abuse. Charlie also sheds light on a terrifying new trend, the attackers have open-sourced their worm, complete with a "dead man's switch" designed to wipe infected machines if credentials are revoked.

In this episode, I sit down with Charlie Eriksen, the researcher who uncovered the Shai Hulud 2.0 campaign, for a deep dive into one of the wildest supply-chain attacks we’ve seen. What began as a strange detection quickly unraveled into a worm that spread across npm, GitHub, and even a compromised Open VSX extension.“Patient Zero” was AsyncAPI, where the attackers exploited a subtle GitHub Actions flaw that let them run malicious code inside the org’s own CI pipelines without their pull request ever being merged. Unmerged PR → full RCE → stolen org-level credentials.From there, the worm propagated through packages, harvested secrets with TruffleHog, dumped them into tens of thousands of GitHub repos, and, most shockingly, contained a wiper mode that deleted a victim’s entire home directory if it couldn’t create new repos.It’s a fascinating and slightly terrifying look at how modern supply-chain attacks actually work under the hood. Give it a listen.

In this episode, host Mackenzie Jackson is joined by Charlie Erikson and Daniel Pereira to uncover the story of Shai-Hulud — a self-propagating worm that shook the NPM ecosystem. Like the great sandworm of Arrakis, it surfaced suddenly, exfiltrating secrets and spreading through unsuspecting packages.Daniel recounts his discovery and the frustrating desert-like silence from major platforms as he tried to raise the alarm. Charlie dives into the worm’s anatomy, from environment variable theft to GitHub action exploits, showing how attackers evolved their tactics from the earlier NX breach.Together, they reflect on what it takes to fight worms in the shifting sands of open source, and why the community needs faster ways to respond before the next Shai-Hulud emerges.

Charlie Erkson and Mackenzie Jackson return with breaking news on one of the wildest supply chain compromises to date. The popular NX packages—with millions of weekly downloads—were hijacked, and attackers used an LLM-powered malware to crawl systems for secrets like GitHub and NPM tokens. Even stranger, instead of exfiltrating data to a private server, the stolen information was dumped into public GitHub repositories, exposing sensitive credentials for anyone to see.In this episode of Bad Dependencies, the hosts unpack:How the NX compromise happened and why it’s uniquely reckless.The bizarre use of LLMs for system enumeration.Why publishing secrets to public repos raises the stakes for everyone.The remediation steps users must take if they were affected.Broader implications for the future of software supply chain security.Is this careless malware, or was the chaos intentional? Tune in for analysis, insights, and some grim humor as the hosts dissect a case study in just how bad things can get when package compromises go wrong.

In this episode of Bad Dependencies, we explore the gray zone of offensive security with researcher Raphael Silva from Checkmarx. Hosts Mackenzie and Charlie break down June’s 4,000+ flagged malicious packages, then chat with Raphael about his real-world experiments planting “malicious-but-not” packages in places like npm and the VS Code Marketplace. From unicode deception to malware hidden in PNGs, this episode unpacks the ethics of bug bounties, the dangers of going too far, and how easy it is to slip past marketplace defenses—until a random security guy in Poland catches you first.00:00 – Intro & Weather Woes00:50 – Malware Madness: 4,000+ Packages Flagged02:00 – Offensive Security 10104:00 – The Ethics of Fake Malware06:00 – Where Researchers Cross the Line10:00 – Common Pitfalls & Accidental Exposure12:05 – Guest Joins: Raphael Silva from Checkmarx13:50 – Malicious-but-Not: ExpressJS-Session Deep Dive17:30 – Why Target VS Code Extensions?22:20 – Unicode Tricks, Copycats & What’s Next

In the debut episode of Bad Dependencies, Charlie and Mackenzie unpack some seriously strange cases of malware hidden in plain sight on NPM. They explore how malicious actors are stuffing payloads into image files like JPEGs and PNGs, and how these are being unpacked with clever JavaScript tricks to evade detection.You'll hear how AI-generated decoy code, fake Readme files, and hidden PowerShell scripts are being used to disguise the true intent of packages — from base64 blobs in JPEGs to fake "fingerprinting" logic that serves no purpose other than distraction.Expect deep dives into packages like node-wave-http, axios-fingerprint, and expressjs-session, with behind-the-scenes insights on how attackers are setting the stage for future payload delivery. Plus, discover why Discord and Cloudflare are often abused for hosting malware — and what makes Windows such a popular target for these campaigns.If you've ever wondered how bad dependencies make it past package registry checks — or how to spot them — this episode is for you.00:00 - Welcome to Bad Dependencies01:10 - Hiding Malware in Images: NodeWave HTTP04:59 - Malicious JPEG Unpacks via PowerShell07:09 - Why Hackers Use Discord for Malware Delivery09:06 - Why NPM & GitHub Don’t Catch This Stuff11:00 - A Legit App or Malware Decoy? The OSU Twist12:34 - AI-Generated Code as Distraction Noise14:44 - Obscure Pre-flight Checks & Fake Logic17:09 - Alternate Payloads Hosted on Cloudflare22:00 - PNG with Base64-Encoded Eval Exploit26:30 - This Just Sends System Info: Bug Bounty Play?30:59 - Detecting Malware with Entropy Analysis