John Deere Dependency Confusion Attempt and More | Sonatype Blog

This Week in Malware - John Deere Dependency Confusion Attempt and More

July 22, 2022
By Ax Sharma

3 minute read time

This week in malware, we discovered and analyzed 17 packages, at least a dozen of which were dependency confusion PoCs directly targeting the agricultural equipment giant John Deere (Deere & Company).

Additionally, we discovered 40+ PyPI and npm packages that are either dependency confusion candidates, prank packages, contain PoC reverse shell code, or were otherwise flagged as suspicious for containing extensive obfuscation without good reason.

John Deere Dependency Confusion Attempt Flagged by Sonatype

John Deere, or more specifically, Deere & Company, is a U.S.-based global producer of agricultural equipment including machines, tractors, and engines, as well as a provider of financial services.

This week Sonatype identified 17 npm packages, at least 12 of which directly target John Deere's private npm dependencies via dependency confusion, a technique that continues to repeatedly be employed by bug bounty hunters and malicious actors alike when targeting open source packages.

Read the dedicated blog post to learn more.

More Suspicious and Malicious Packages

npm and PyPI packages flagged as suspicious or malicious by our automated malware detection bots are listed below:

Turn on Sonatype Firewall for Automatic Protection

This discovery follows our earlier report of malicious Python packages that stole Telegram cache files and set up illicit Remote Desktop (RDP) accounts on Windows systems.

As a DevSecOps organization, we remain committed to identifying and halting attacks against open source developers and the wider software supply chain, like the ones discussed above.

Users of Sonatype Firewall can rest easy knowing that such malicious packages would automatically be blocked from reaching their development builds.

Sonatype Firewall instances will automatically quarantine any suspicious components detected by our automated malware detection systems while a manual review by a researcher is in the works, thereby keeping your software supply chain protected from the start.

Sonatype's world-class security research data, combined with our automated malware detection technology safeguards your developers, customers, and software supply chain from infections.

Written by Ax Sharma
Ax is a security researcher, malware analyst and journalist with a penchant for open source software. His works and expert analyses have frequently been featured by leading media outlets including the BBC. Ax's expertise lies in security vulnerability research, reverse engineering, and cybercrime investigations. He has a passion for educating a wide range of audiences through writing and vlogs.