New Email Security Technique Prevents Phishing Attacks Behind NPM Breach

The discovery of a large-scale NPM ecosystem compromise in September 2025 has renewed focus on email security as the critical first line of defense against supply chain attacks.

Threat actors successfully compromised multiple high-profile NPM developer accounts through a sophisticated phishing campaign, inserting malicious code into 20 popular packages that collectively received nearly 2.8 billion weekly downloads.

A new analysis demonstrates how advanced email protection capabilities could have intercepted the very first malicious message that triggered this incident.

On September 8, 2025, a threat actor executed a highly targeted phishing campaign against NPM developers, specifically impersonating NPM Support.

The attack centered on developer Josh Junon (known as “qix”), who received a deceptive email titled “Two-Factor Authentication Update Required” from the spoofed address support@npmjs[.]help.

The message claimed that the recipient’s two-factor authentication configuration was outdated and required immediate attention, threatening account suspension if the ...