Dork Lord

An NPM (Node Package Manager) supply chain attack has prompted Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet to urge crypto users to pause on-chain transactions.
“There’s a large-scale supply chain attack in progress: the NPM account of a reputable developer has been compromised,” Guillemet <a href="https://x.com/P3b7_/status/1965094840959410230" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">wrote</a> on X.&nbsp;“The affected packages have already been downloaded over 1 billion times, meaning the entire JavaScript ecosystem may be at risk.”
His recommendation to not perform any on-chain transactions was mainly targeted at crypto community members who don’t use a hardware wallet. However, he did caution anyone who does use a hardware wallet to “pay attention to every transaction before signing” in order to stay safe.
Guilleme is one of many crypto developers that has issued the warning. <a href="https://x.com/0x_ultra/status/1965105221321068572?s=46&amp;t=yoL7WJcO9vZ3TjSE2j6FRQ" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">According</a> to GCr’s 0x_ultra, “Chalk and projects with it as a dependency (2 billion+ weekly downloads) have been pwned.”&nbsp; Developers are now stealing users’ private keys, subsequently gaining access to crypto wallets, the developer said.&nbsp;
The other packages that seem to be affected are strip-ansi and color-convert. Chalk and these packages are small utilities that are buried deep in the dependency trees in a vast number of projects.
<h2 id="span-style-font-weight-400-how-the-npm-attack-happened-span">How The NPM Attack Happened</h2>
NPM is the default package manager for Node.js, which is the runtime environment for the JavaScript programming language. It’s a crucial tool in the JavaScript ecosystem, and facilitates the management of software packages and their dependencies.&nbsp;
In simple terms, NPM is a large online registry that contains millions of open-source JavaScript packages and modules that any developer can use.
In the recent attack, a hacker or group of hackers managed to break into the NPM account of a well-known software developer and added malware to popular libraries that have already been downloaded over a billion times.&nbsp;
The malware is designed to insert the hacker’s wallet address when a crypto user is about to execute a transaction.&nbsp;
The package’s maintainer, whose accounts were compromised, <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/bad-at-computer.bsky.social/post/3lydioq5swk2y" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">confirmed</a> the incident earlier today. In a BlueSky post, he said that he received a 2 factor authentication (2FA) email that “looked very legitimate,” but turned out to be a phishing email.&nbsp;
In the email, the attackers had threatened that his account would be locked on Sept. 10 as a scare tactic to get him to click a malicious link in the email that gave the attackers access to his NPM account.&nbsp;
<h2 id="span-style-font-weight-400-npm-breach-being-called-the-largest-supply-chain-attack-ever-span">NPM Breach Being Called The “Largest Supply Chain Attack Ever”</h2>
According to the X account Solid Intel, this attack is being called the “largest supply chain attack ever.”&nbsp;
<img src="https://insidebitcoins.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-100428-300x167.png" alt="Solid Intel post" width="787" height="438">
NPM attack being called the largest-ever supply chain attack (Source: <a href="https://x.com/solidintel_x/status/1965104899785359469?s=46&amp;t=yoL7WJcO9vZ3TjSE2j6FRQ" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">X</a>)
The malware mainly affects the front end of crypto projects, which are usually written in JavaScript and not the actual backend smart contract addresses, <a href="https://x.com/0xcygaar/status/1965107232120418418?s=46&amp;t=yoL7WJcO9vZ3TjSE2j6FRQ" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">according</a> to X user “cygaar.”&nbsp;
Cygaar commented under his post, adding that it seems NPM has already disabled the compromised version of the affected packages.&nbsp;
While several crypto users are potentially at risk, popular wallet providers such as Ledger and MetaMask have marked their platforms as safe from the attack.&nbsp;
Phantom Wallet’s team also said that they do not use any vulnerable version of the affected packages, and UniSwap has noted that none of its apps are at risk either.&nbsp;
Other platforms, including Blockstream Jade, Revoke.cash, Aerodrom and Blast said that their platforms are unaffected by the attack as well.&nbsp;
<h2 id="span-style-font-weight-400-npm-hackers-have-only-stolen-500-so-far-span">NPM Hackers Have Only Stolen $500 So Far</h2>
Initially, the impact of the NPM attack seemed almost negligible, with reports that the hackers only stole $0.05 from the incident. However, there have since been <a href="https://x.com/_SEAL_Org/status/1965142760660562210" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">reports</a> that the amount has risen to $50. This suggests the full ramifications of the attack have not been felt yet.
<a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0xFc4a4858bafef54D1b1d7697bfb5c52F4c166976#tokentxns" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Data</a> from Etherscan, the blockchain explorer for the Ethereum blockchain, shows that the NPM exploiter’s address holds $492.19 as of 3:40 a.m. EST.&nbsp;
The address has received funds through seven tokens, two of which are non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Those tokens include Condola, ANDY, Brett, Dork Lord and Ethervista, as well as NFT tokens Canna-Buddiez and Sausage. The address also holds 5 cents worth of ETH.
<img src="https://insidebitcoins.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-09-094545-300x86.png" alt="NPM exploiter's holdings" width="851" height="244">
NFT exploiter’s token holdings (Source: Etherscan)
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NPM Hack Puts 1 Billion Crypto Wallets At Risk As Ledger CTO Urges Users To Halt Transactions

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