As AI speeds up development, teams can add dependencies faster than they can review them. Attackers exploit that gap with malicious packages disguised as familiar components, plugins, and developer tools. Sonatype logged 149,329 malicious packages in Q3 2026, about 1,600 a day, bringing the total tracked since 2017 to nearly 2 million. Among packages with overtly malicious behavior, nearly 75% involved droppers, secrets theft, or both. A separate analysis of 4,309 packages found attackers using believable, ecosystem-adjacent names to evade notice.

In this session, we'll examine how those attack chains unfold, including a malicious PyPI package published by an AI agent and the Mini Shai-Hulud campaign's use of stolen npm credentials to republish compromised packages. You'll learn practical ways to prevent malicious components from executing, detect suspicious behavior, limit credential exposure, and investigate what happened after a package entered your environment.