DuckDB NPM packages 1.3.3 and 1.29.2 compromised with malware

Summary

The DuckDB distribution for Node.js on npm was compromised with malware (along with several other packages). An attacker published new versions of four of duckdb’s packages that included malicious code to interfere with cryptocoin transactions. According to the npm statistics, nobody has downloaded these packages before they were deprecated. The following packages and versions are affected: @duckdb/node-api@1.3.3 @duckdb/node-bindings@1.3.3 duckdb@1.3.3 @duckdb/duckdb-wasm@1.29.2 Note: The current release version of DuckDB is 1.3.2, with 1.4.0 expected to be released on Sept 10th, 2025 (tomorrow as of this writing). We do not plan to ever release a “legit” DuckDB 1.3.3. Users should double-check that they are not accidentally updating to those affected versions. We have ourselves noticed this within four hours of it happening. Here’s our response: As an immediate response, we have deprecated the specific versions. We have also reached out to npm support to actually delete the affected versions. We cannot do this ourselves. Until npm support deletes the affected versions, they will still be listed on npm. We are also re-releasing the node packages with higher version numbers (1.3.4/1.30.0) as a further safeguard so the latest version of the package points to a safe version and nobody accidentally installs the affected versions. We apologize for this issue. We are reviewing our internal processes to ensure the safety of future releases. Postmortem On September 8 Monday, the DuckDB maintainers received the following message from "...@npmjs.help": One of the maintainers read through this text and found it somewhat reasonable. He followed the link (now defunct) to a website hosted under the domain npmjs.help. This website contained a pixel-perfect copy of the npmjs.com website. He logged in using the duckdb_admin user and password, followed by 2FA. Again, the user profile, settings etc. were a perfect copy of the npmjs.com website including all user data. As requested by...