RC NPM Supply Chain Attack 

THE THREAT

On November 4th, threat actors compromised the RC NPM Library. The RC NPM Library is an open-source configuration loader that is downloaded over 14 million times per week. Malicious versions of the library were uploaded by threat actors. eSentire has confirmed that the malicious library versions led to the installation of the information-stealing trojan DanaBot. Malicious library versions have since been removed and are no longer available for download.

Organizations making use of the RC NPM library are strongly recommended to ensure that only the legitimate version is in use.

What we’re doing about it

• eSentire MDR for Network has rules in place to detect DanaBot
• Techniques observed in this campaign are detected via eSentire MDR for Endpoint
• Threat hunts for Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) and TTPs have been performed for all eSentire MDR for Endpoint customers
  • Impacted customers will be notified directly
• eSentire is actively tracking this threat for additional details and detection opportunities

What you should do about it

• Ensure that only the most recent, non-malicious version of RC is in use (version 1.2.8 – Released December 2015)
• If malicious versions were installed, impacted devices should be treated as compromised and user credentials must be reset

Additional information

Observed malicious versions of RC are as follows:

• 1.2.9
• 1.3.9
• 2.3.9

This is the third NPM Library related supply chain attack to occur since October 22nd. All three attacks have shared TTPs and are believed to have been conducted by the same threat actor. The first two attacks against the UA-Parser-JS NPM library and the COA NPM Library were confirmed to have stemmed from compromised developer accounts.

DanaBot is an info-stealer malware that has been in use since at least May 2018. It has received multiple updates since its release and is capable of stealing sensitive data including passwords and banking information, as well as downloading and executing additional malicious content. Public reports and some vendors have claimed that this attack leads to the deployment of the Qakbot trojan. Based on eSentire telemetry, eSentire has not observed any indication of Qakbot distribution via supply chain attacks at this time.

References:

[1] https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-g2q5-5433-rhrf
[2] https://www.npmjs.com/package/rc
[3] https://www.esentire.com/security-advisories/npm-library-supply-chain-attack
[4] https://www.esentire.com/security-advisories/coa-npm-supply-chain-attack