A single PR just hijacked the NPM registry...

A sophisticated supply chain attack compromised over 100 npm packages downloaded 50 million times per week by exploiting a misconfigured GitHub Actions workflow in the TanStack repository. The attacker used the `pull_request_target` trigger, which runs fork PRs with main repo permissions, to poison the CI cache and steal an npm publish token. The malware then spread by scanning infected machines for npm tokens and republishing poisoned versions, eventually reaching packages from Mistral AI, UiPath, OpenSearch, and others. The worm embedded itself into VS Code and Claude Code, and included a dead-man switch that nukes the root directory when a stolen GitHub token expires. Mitigations include using pnpm v1+ with minimum release age, blocking exotic subdependencies, and the approved-builds feature.