Ravie LakshmananMay 23, 2026Malware / DevSecOps
A new "coordinated" supply chain attack campaign has impacted eight packages on Packagist including malicious code designed to run a Linux binary retrieved from a GitHub Releases URL.
"Although the affected packages were all Composer packages, the malicious code was not added to composer.json," Socket said. "Instead, it was inserted into package.json, targeting projects that ship JavaScript build tooling alongside PHP code."
This "cross-ecosystem placement" makes the activity stand out because developers and security teams scanning PHP dependencies may only focus on Composer-related metadata, while skipping package.json lifecycle hooks that are bundled within the package. The malicious versions have since been removed from Packagist.
An analysis of the packages has uncovered that their upstream repositories have been modified to include a postinstall script that attempts to download a Linux binary from a GitHub Releases URL ("github[.]com/parikhpreyash4/systemd-network-helper-aa5c751f"), save it to the "/tmp/.sshd" folder, change its permissions using "chmod" to grant execute permissions to all users, and run it in the background.
