OVHcloud CLI releases backdoored on GitHub to spread an infostealer

On 19 October 2026, OVHcloud — the French cloud and hosting provider — found that releases of its open-source command-line interface (CLI) on GitHub had been tampered with to distribute information-stealing malware. A booby-trapped build appeared at 14:47 and was pulled at 16:21 after a customer flagged it, but anyone who downloaded and ran an affected binary in that window should treat every secret on the machine as compromised.

According to OVHcloud's chairman Octave Klaba, the compromised versions were v0.11.0, v0.12.0, v0.13.0, v0.14.0 and v0.15.0; version 0.10.0 and the subsequent 0.16.0 release were reported clean. The malicious binaries targeted macOS (Intel and ARM), Linux (x86_64 and ARM64) and Windows x86-64, while source builds and Docker images were not affected.

How the releases were tampered with

Attackers hijacked a developer's GitHub account to reach the repository and modify existing releases. OVHcloud said GitHub's release-immutability setting had been disabled, so a sufficiently privileged account could overwrite published releases without passing the project's CI/CD checks; Klaba stressed that the CI/CD pipelines themselves were not affected and that the attacker had uploaded malware-infected packages built locally. Researchers who analysed the repository said the account appeared to have been compromised for more than half a year, pointing to a scripted history rewrite dated 5 March 2026.

The implanted code used a hidden preinstall.js loader that decoded to a second stage retrieving its instructions from a Solana blockchain memo "dead drop," with the aim of harvesting secrets from disk. Researchers at OpenSourceMalware linked the operation to GlassWorm, a campaign active since late 2025 against the VS Code marketplace, OpenVSX, GitHub and npm, noting that the associated cryptocurrency wallet is a known GlassWorm indicator.

Response

OVHcloud re-enabled GitHub's release-immutability feature and said it considered the incident resolved. It urged anyone who had downloaded a compromised package to clean up the affected system and revoke all secrets that may have been exposed. The episode is a reminder that a trusted vendor's distribution channel — not only the code it ships — is part of the software supply chain, and that an account takeover can turn a routine CLI update into a credential-harvesting foothold on developers' machines.