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If a package you use may have been compromised, first establish whether an affected version entered your dependency tree and whether it ran. If it could have executed, contain the affected system, preserve evidence, and protect any credentials it could reach. Then remove the compromised resolution, restore from a version confirmed as trusted, and verify the result.
How do you know whether your project used the compromised package?
Start with the package maintainer’s or registry’s official advisory. Record the exact package name, ecosystem, affected versions, publication window, described behavior, and any version or commit identified as safe. Those details vary by incident; a package name alone is not enough to determine exposure.
Compare the advisory with your manifests and lockfiles, including nested dependencies. A package may be present as a transitive dependency even when your project never names it directly. Check the resolved dependency graph as well as the files in source control, and review build and installation records to determine which machines or jobs fetched the affected version. CISA’s npm campaign alert specifically advises checking lockfiles for affected packages, including nested dependencies: CISA campaign advisory. GitHub recommends documenting the affected systems and incident timeline in its incident-response guidance.
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What should you do first if the package may have run?
Contain the affected execution path. Depending on the system’s role and operational impact, stop the job, isolate the machine, or pause the affected build or deployment. Preserve relevant logs, runner records, dependency artifacts, and audit trails before rebuilding or cleaning the system; otherwise, useful evidence may be lost.
Map which developer machines, CI runners, build servers, and deployment environments fetched or executed the package. Include the systems and accounts the process could reach. GitHub’s incident-response guidance describes package installation, credential exploitation, workflow changes, and data exfiltration as techniques that can occur together, so checking only application source may miss activity elsewhere: GitHub incident-response guidance.
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Should you rotate API keys and other credentials?
Identify secrets available to the affected process, including registry and source-control tokens, cloud credentials, SSH keys, deployment credentials, and secrets injected into jobs. Revoke or rotate credentials that may have been exposed, then update the systems that depend on them. GitHub’s incident-response documentation advises: “Even if you’re not certain a credential was compromised, rotate it if there’s any possibility of exposure.” Do this from a trusted machine or environment if the affected host itself may be compromised: GitHub incident-response guidance.
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Include short-lived CI jobs in the review. Ephemeral runners can still receive secrets while they run; CISA’s Axios advisory specifically addresses secrets injected into compromised ephemeral CI jobs: CISA Axios advisory.
What if it was only installed in CI?
Treat the CI environment as a potential exposure point if the affected version may have executed there. Review the runner, job logs, workflow changes, and the secrets or permissions available to that job. Check whether the runner was self-hosted or shared, whether it persisted state between jobs, and whether it could access source control, deployment systems, or cloud resources. The package’s actual behavior and the job’s privileges determine how far the investigation needs to go; “only CI” does not establish that no credentials or other systems were reachable.
How do you check for persistence or unauthorized changes?
Review the places an attacker could use to maintain access or alter later builds. Prioritize checks based on the package-specific advisory and the process’s privileges; a generic malware scan is not a complete forensic examination.
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- Compare workflow files, repository changes, webhooks, and deployment configuration with known-good versions.
- Review self-hosted runners, installed GitHub or OAuth apps, deploy keys, and relevant account and organization audit logs.
- Investigate the affected host and any cloud or source-control accounts the package could reach.
- Check for unexpected binaries, processes, or other changes indicated by the advisory’s described behavior.
GitHub provides incident-specific investigation areas alongside its broader incident-response guidance.
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- Update the manifest and lockfile so the affected version is no longer selected. Choose a version or commit identified as safe by a trustworthy maintainer or registry advisory.
- Reinstall from a trusted source, following your organization’s incident procedures. GitHub recommends pinning to known-good versions or commit SHAs and reinstalling from trusted sources: GitHub incident-response guidance.
- Inspect the resulting dependency graph, including transitive dependencies, rather than checking only the top-level manifest.
Do not run an automatic upgrade or audit-fix command blindly during an incident. npm documents that npm audit fix runs an install under the hood, and installer configuration affects that operation: npm audit documentation. Choose remediation deliberately and preserve the records needed to understand what was installed.
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How do you verify the recovery and monitor for follow-on activity?
Confirm that affected versions are absent from the relevant dependency graph and that credentials considered exposed have been replaced. Review code, secret, and malware alerts together with the logs and audit trails for the affected systems over the post-incident period. Dependabot malware alerts can provide one signal: GitHub’s malware-alert documentation.
A clean audit or absence of an alert is one piece of evidence, not proof that no malicious execution occurred. Compare dependency resolution with installation and execution records, then interpret both against the package-specific advisory. For an incident whose scope or impact is unclear, involve your organization’s security responders or a qualified incident-response professional.
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