Hackers are poisoning the well. The digital world we trust is being contaminated by malicious code, slipped right into the open-source software that powers virtually everything. The numbers are staggering—malicious open-source packages have skyrocketed by 156% in 2024 compared to last year. Not a typo. One hundred and fifty-six percent.

Since 2019, security researchers have identified over 778,529 malicious packages. That’s not a small problem. It’s an epidemic. These aren’t random attacks either. They’re calculated strikes against developers, exploiting the very tools meant to make coding easier and more efficient.

The worst part? Most companies have no idea they’re vulnerable. Over 80% of problematic dependencies sit unpatched for more than a year. Just sitting there. Waiting. Like digital time bombs.

These malicious packages are sneaky. They disguise themselves as legitimate software. They slip through conventional security tools. Traditional defenses? Useless. The attackers know exactly what they’re doing—targeting the people who build our software infrastructure.

Criminals in code’s clothing, slipping past your defenses while traditional security stands blind to the threat.

Think about it. Developers pull in dozens, sometimes hundreds of dependencies. No human can personally audit all that code. The system is built on trust. And trust is exactly what these attackers exploit.

The techniques are sophisticated. Rootkits. Advanced malware. All carefully crafted to hide in plain sight within popular repositories. The average enterprise application inherits 13 critical vulnerabilities yearly without even knowing it. The open nature of open-source software—normally its greatest strength—becomes its greatest vulnerability.

Detection is a nightmare. Malicious code uses every evasion trick in the book. Poor dependency management makes tracking components nearly impossible. Many teams don’t even know what code they’re actually running.

Regular audits and secure coding practices could help. So could better dependency management tools. But let’s be real—most organizations are too busy shipping features to worry about what’s lurking in their dependencies. The threat is particularly severe on npm, which accounts for 98.5% of malware found in open source repositories.

The digital supply chain is infected. And until we take this threat seriously, it’s only going to get worse. Much worse.