Active Supply Chain Attack on axios 1.14.1
axios@1.14.1, published 2026-03-31, introduces a new dependency plain-crypto-js@4.2.1 that was not present in axios@1.14.0. This package is malicious — it contains an obfuscated postinstall script (setup.js) that downloads and executes a remote payload. Evidence axios@1.14.0 dependencies: follow-redirects, form-data, proxy-from-env (3 deps) axios@1.14.1 dependencies: same 3 + plain-crypto-js (new, not in any prior axios version) plain-crypto-js has "postinstall": "node setup.js" in its scripts setup.js is heavily obfuscated — it decodes base64 strings, writes scripts to the OS temp directory, executes them via shell (macOS) or PowerShell (Windows), then deletes itself
Discussion Highlights (1 comments)
nullbyte
npm security team has removed the offending package: https://github.com/axios/axios/issues/10604#issuecomment-415... new installs should be safe now