Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Application Security

GitHub Warns of Private Repositories Downloaded Using Stolen OAuth Tokens

GitHub has sounded the alarm on a cyberattack that resulted in the private repositories of dozens of organizations being downloaded by an unauthorized party abusing stolen OAuth user tokens.

The incident was identified on April 12, when the code hosting platform observed suspicious activity on its npm production infrastructure.

GitHub has sounded the alarm on a cyberattack that resulted in the private repositories of dozens of organizations being downloaded by an unauthorized party abusing stolen OAuth user tokens.

The incident was identified on April 12, when the code hosting platform observed suspicious activity on its npm production infrastructure.

The attackers, according to a GitHub advisory, gained access using a stolen AWS API key that appears to have been obtained when the attackers downloaded private npm repositories by abusing a compromised OAuth token from Heroku or Travis-CI, two third-party OAuth integrators.

GitHub and many of the platform users employ the applications maintained by the two integrators, and both Heroku and Travis-CI were notified of the compromise on April 13 and 14 and asked to revoke potentially compromised OAuth user tokens.

[ READ: Google Teams Up With GitHub for Supply Chain Security ]

“Looking across the entire GitHub platform, we have high confidence that compromised OAuth user tokens from Heroku and Travis-CI-maintained OAuth applications were stolen and abused to download private repositories belonging to dozens of victim organizations that were using these apps,” GitHub warned.

The hosting platform also believes that the attackers may be mining the compromised repositories of secrets that could help them pivot to other infrastructure.

As of April 15, when the attackers were likely still ongoing, the affected OAuth applications known to have been impacted included Heroku Dashboard (ID: 145909), Heroku Dashboard (ID: 628778), Heroku Dashboard – Preview (ID: 313468), Heroku Dashboard – Classic (ID: 363831), and Travis CI (ID: 9216).

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

GitHub said it immediately revoked the tokens associated with GitHub and npm’s internal use of the impacted applications. The platform also notes that it has found no evidence that other GitHub-owned private repositories were cloned as part of this attack.

“We believe that the two impacts to npm are unauthorized access to, and downloading of, the private repositories in the npm organization on GitHub.com and potential access to the npm packages as they exist in AWS S3 storage. At this point, we assess that the attacker did not modify any packages or gain access to any user account data or credentials,” GitHub added.

Related: GitHub Confirms Another Major NPM Security Defect

Related: Code Generated by GitHub Copilot Can Introduce Vulnerabilities

Related: GitHub Patches Security Flaws in Core Node.js Dependencies

Written By

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Learn how the LOtL threat landscape has evolved, why traditional endpoint hardening methods fall short, and how adaptive, user-aware approaches can reduce risk.

Watch Now

Join the summit to explore critical threats to public cloud infrastructure, APIs, and identity systems through discussions, case studies, and insights into emerging technologies like AI and LLMs.

Register

People on the Move

Cloud security startup Upwind has appointed Rinki Sethi as Chief Security Officer.

SAP security firm SecurityBridge announced the appointment of Roman Schubiger as the company’s new CRO.

Cybersecurity training and simulations provider SimSpace has appointed Peter Lee as Chief Executive Officer.

More People On The Move

Expert Insights

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest cybersecurity news, threats, and expert insights. Unsubscribe at any time.