In a recent discovery, our research team uncovered a fake VS-code extension—truffelvscode—typosquatting the popular truffle for VS-code extension. This extension serves as a trojan horse for multi-stage malware. This blog takes a closer look at how the malicious extension operates, its obfuscation techniques, and IOCs related to this incident.

This story starts when Sébastien Lorber, maintainer of Docusaurus, the React-based open-source documentation project, notices a Pull Request change to the package manifest. Here’s the change proposed to the popular cliui npm package: Specifically, drawing our attention to the npm dependencies change that use an unfamiliar syntax: Most developers would expect to see a semver version range in the value of a package or perhaps a Git or file-based URL.

In many standard enterprise applications, consistent logging serves a multitude of purposes. It helps businesses identify and rectify errors, provides valuable analytical insights, and lets you test new solutions. However, this also makes log injections one of the most common ways hackers can hijack or even gain access to sensitive user information.

Many developers overlook the risks lurking in third-party packages. Every package you add could harbor vulnerabilities, potentially exposing sensitive user data and granting unauthorized access to your systems. It can lead to severe consequences, including data breaches, system compromises, reputation damage, and disruption of your services. With 80% of projects using at least one vulnerable package – it’s a crucial issue.