Beware Developers! Malicious NPM Packages Targeting PayPal Users to Steal Sensitive Data

FortiGuard Labs, Fortinet’s AI-driven threat intelligence arm, has uncovered a series of malicious NPM packages designed to steal sensitive information from developers and target PayPal users. Detected between March 5 and March 14, 2025, these packages were published by a threat actor using the aliases “tommyboy_h1” and “tommyboy_h2,” believed to be the same individual. The […] The post Beware Developers! Malicious NPM Packages Targeting PayPal Users to Steal Sensitive Data appeared first on Cyber Security News.

Apr 12, 2025 - 10:31

Beware Developers! Malicious NPM Packages Targeting PayPal Users to Steal Sensitive Data

FortiGuard Labs, Fortinet’s AI-driven threat intelligence arm, has uncovered a series of malicious NPM packages designed to steal sensitive information from developers and target PayPal users.

Detected between March 5 and March 14, 2025, these packages were published by a threat actor using the aliases “tommyboy_h1” and “tommyboy_h2,” believed to be the same individual.

The published packages of the author of “tommyboy_h2.”

The malicious packages, including names like oauth2-paypal and buttonfactoryserv-paypal, exploit PayPal’s trusted brand to deceive developers into installing them.

By mimicking legitimate PayPal-related functionality, the packages create a false sense of legitimacy, increasing their chances of evading detection.

Once installed, they deploy a preinstall hook that automatically runs a malicious script, collecting system data such as usernames, hostnames, and directory paths without user awareness.

FortiGuard Labs’ analysis reveals that the script encodes stolen data into hexadecimal format, obfuscates it by splitting and truncating directory paths, and sends it to attacker-controlled servers via dynamically generated URLs.

This obfuscation makes it difficult for security tools to detect or block the exfiltration. The harvested information could be used to compromise PayPal accounts, fuel further attacks, or be sold on the dark web.

Key Findings

The campaign’s scale is notable, with the threat actor publishing numerous packages in a short timeframe. Examples include oauth2-paypal v699.0.0, buttonfactoryserv-paypal v3.50.0, and tommyboytesting variants, all exhibiting identical malicious code.

The packages target small to medium-sized businesses and developers, exploiting the open-source ecosystem’s trust model.

FortiGuard AntiVirus has flagged the malicious files as Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr, covering packages like:

bankingbundleserv_1.20.0
buttonfactoryserv-paypal_3.50.0 and 3.99.0
oauth2-paypal (multiple versions, e.g., 0.6.0, 699.0.0)
compliancereadserv-paypal_2.1.0

The authors of tommyboy_h1 and tommyboy_h2 are likely the same person, publishing multiple malicious packages in a short time. We suspect that the same author created these packages to target PayPal users, Fortinet said..

FortiGuard Labs urges organizations and developers to:

Verify NPM packages, avoiding those with suspicious names like “paypal” (e.g., oauth2-paypal).
Monitor network logs for unexpected connections to unknown servers.
Remove any detected malicious packages, change compromised credentials, and scan systems for additional threats.
Ensure security software is updated to leverage Fortinet’s latest protections.

Indicators of Compromise

File	Hash (sha256)	Detection
bankingbundleserv_1.20.0	796deae716a6d66b49a99d00e541056babe34fd2fcbcea0380491de4b792afba	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
buttonfactoryserv-paypal_3.50.0	18e45358462363996688ceabfc098e17f855d73842f460b34c683e58c728149f	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
buttonfactoryserv-paypal_3.99.0	88bd580aa51129e4e5fa69e148131874c862015e7c51d59497e11f22db2d72c6	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.1	23664decf3c2f28a3f552dc98d90017926617969713ccccdc9f5fd3178d76dbf	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.2	ba63fbf6f7bab000bc1b1bf92319415328cea238872450adbaac6a6069132779	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.5	f359b687fb9e1a4c27fdf5174380abc9877f940ef6a6fd4d38e9ef40bb778107	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.6	815ebfc4fb5bddf1f9ca1b12ae2a1b0e37736a93ea9babe858747096ad9ce671	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.7	d21ae84e104a305b5aebee8e6fbb4837976ef26935dac90372637f913ef58154	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.8	0c006540abcb768cad80a1a8ced926fa58f10cf9eb0be16c4185850df83bff82	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.9	847e684a228292dc905205d7353ed9458e10129105fe3b387c4e9374d6afd783	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.10	ed6a350c4b1baa6f098293c328d0a62d35aafb4ab62b93e6f3a611f06be9aa29	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.11	123480357ab54d2c2067640105b5683445777ae1d20fd52551a5df9327692103	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
tommyboytesting_1.0.12	3710742057e470e8882a84412721ed19652e3f13977af21a937bad27d75b6f96	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
compliancereadserv-paypal_2.1.0	dd1a177126d48072381db98af74c964100c8ef2e43286f3a31114461251a164c	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
oauth2-paypal_0.6.0	0d8c5bb69c567e3949cc6e087610d79c886d9140d0eda88cc92d3ec63fb7a3b9	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
oauth2-paypal_1.6.0	b6bc001bc9b4171a27fb2a485cb3e3d8f23bc1ee6b4a03bbcfbba63b7d208477	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
oauth2-paypal_2.6.0	2c7bf841a659fa1d8105d26f6664ebc3a78b99e0c071eb7f529503346c40f778	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
oauth2-paypal_4.8.0	cbbe1d5a7d4a721c61b9c3b8b6a8e5d65508f02c70e708698d8165d92e154383	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
oauth2-paypal_7.5.0	25034c2542757ac93cb6008479a5bfc594f9e92f66249f6fb862447a18847ba7	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
oauth2-paypal_10.0.0	148d3552db2acf469c84e26889336f06167c6cf455248e08d703282bc0556fb8	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
oauth2-paypal_699.0.0	7186674c208242b8e6fdf7b0f4e7539218590618fee517aa264e8446247d3440	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
Paymentapiplatformservice-paypal_1.20.0	7a48db17a02e94c97a329cc1a578777d8b4fb74221bdb22202369d6590917fd0	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
Userbridge-paypal_1.20.0	7a48db17a02e94c97a329cc1a578777d8b4fb74221bdb22202369d6590917fd0	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr
userrelationship-paypal_1.20.0	ca7dc2b0856f89e71ce9da6f179b34c8879456b5dffda0b5bd3f0fd73bab1c50	Bash/TommyBoy.A!tr

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The post Beware Developers! Malicious NPM Packages Targeting PayPal Users to Steal Sensitive Data appeared first on Cyber Security News.