Open Source · · 74 days
electron-native-notify stole wallet seeds
electron-native-notify was published as useful npm code, then changed to steal Agama wallet seeds after the target adopted it.
electron-native-notify was a staged dependency attack, not a random poisoned package. npm described the pattern plainly: publish a useful module, wait until the target adopts it, then update the same module with the payload. The timing was the story. The package appeared on npm on March 6, 2019; on March 8, GitHub user sawlysawly added electron-native-notify@^1.1.5 to Komodo's EasyDEX-GUI application, which fed into the Agama wallet. Fifteen days later, version 1.1.6 introduced the first malicious payload.
The malicious code reached out to updatecheck.herokuapp.com, downloaded a second-stage script, and waited for wallet material. When a user entered an Agama seed or passphrase, the dependency sent that secret to the attacker's remote server. That made the npm package a wallet-key thief rather than a general-purpose backdoor.
Agama 0.3.5 shipped after the malicious release, and later electron-native-notify versions stayed unsafe until npm removed the package. npm privately notified Komodo on June 4, 2019 and coordinated removal and user protection.
The package-level record matters because the same artifact explains the downstream Agama loss. The Agama record carries the fund movement and user impact; this record carries the poisoned npm object, the staged adoption, and the registry timeline.
Appendix · Affected releases
- npm's incident timeline identifies version 1.1.6 as the first malicious release; later package versions remained unsafe until the package was removed.
- The package was introduced into EasyDEX-GUI before the malicious version was published, matching npm's useful-package-then-payload staging pattern.
References
- Malicious Package in electron-native-notifygithub.com
- Plot to steal cryptocurrency foiled by the npm security teamblog.npmjs.org
- Malicious Package in electron-native-notifynpmjs.com
- Update on Komodo's Agama Wallet Vulnerabilitykomodoplatform.com
- Malicious Package in electron-native-notifysecurity.snyk.io
- electron-native-notify 1.1.6 malicious codegist.github.com
- Electron native notifytag-security.cncf.io
Source record: oss/attacks/electron-native-notify/meta.yaml