Supply Chain Attack

A supply chain attack targets the software delivery pipeline rather than the application itself. By compromising a dependency, build tool, package registry, or CI/CD system, an attacker can inject malicious code that executes in every environment that consumes the compromised component.

Attack Vectors in AWS Environments

• Compromised PyPI/npm packages: malicious code injected into popular libraries (e.g., the March 2026 LiteLLM compromise by TeamPCP)
• CI/CD pipeline poisoning: stealing publishing tokens via compromised build tools (e.g., Trivy compromise leading to PyPI token theft)
• Malicious Lambda layers: injecting backdoors into shared Lambda layers
• Container image tampering: poisoning ECR images with credential stealers
• Compromised Terraform modules: injecting resources into IaC templates

AWS-Specific Targets

• EC2 IMDS credentials via 169.254.169.254
• AWS Secrets Manager and SSM Parameter Store dumps
• ECS task credentials via 169.254.170.2
• IAM role credentials from instance profiles

Defenses

• Pin all dependencies to exact versions
• Enforce IMDSv2 on all EC2 instances
• Use PyPI Trusted Publishers (OIDC, no static tokens)
• Scope CI/CD secrets with least privilege
• Scan site-packages/ for .pth files with executable code