Threat Intelligence & APT BleepingComputer 1 month ago

Hackers abuse npm mirrors to host phishing redirect pages

CN
CyberNew Threat Research Desk
• Original Reporting: BleepingComputer
CyberNew Threat Intel Assessment
Assessed Severity: MEDIUM
Impacted Surface
Cloud & Distributed Infrastructure
Intelligence Sector
Threat Intelligence & APT

Analyst Takeaway

"Threat actors are abusing npm and its mirrors to host malicious HTML pages that impersonate Cloudflare CAPTCHAs to redirect visitors to attacker-controlled websites. The technique was previously spotted in July by security researcher inf0stache , who found a 'china_airlines' npm package that used a fake Cloudflare verification page to redirect visitors to a malicious domain, and was also reported..."

Recommended Defense & Mitigation

  • Threat Monitoring: Ingest published IOCs into SIEM/EDR detection rules for continuous telemetry monitoring.
  • Security Awareness: Alert staff and maintain baseline endpoint hardening across endpoints.
Curated & Verified by CyberNew Threat Intelligence Desk Standard Defense Framework (NIST / MITRE ATT&CK)

npm

Threat actors are abusing npm and its mirrors to host malicious HTML pages that impersonate Cloudflare CAPTCHAs to redirect visitors to attacker-controlled websites.

The technique was previously spotted in July by security researcher inf0stache, who found a 'china_airlines' npm package that used a fake Cloudflare verification page to redirect visitors to a malicious domain, and was also reported by IntelFusions.

In a later report, OX Security discovered 24 npm packages containing the same malicious HTML page hosted on npm and various mirrors.

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However, unlike the typical npm supply-chain attacks we've seen lately, installing the packages does not infect a developer's computer with malware or infostealers.

Instead, attackers use the npm registry as free storage for malicious HTML pages, which are then copied by mirroring platforms like UNPKG and npmmirror.

Because some of these platforms let individual files in npm packages be accessed directly in a browser, they effectively turn these developer sites into free web hosting for phishing pages.

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Source Verification & Original Intelligence

This threat report was reviewed by CyberNew analysts and cross-referenced with primary security disclosures from BleepingComputer.

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