Security Report · raw.githubusercontent.com

Sonatype’s 2026 Supply Chain Report Flags Malicious Packages and AI Dependency Risks

Oct 21, 2026 · Original Report (PDF) ↗

Report discovered via Awesome Annual Security Reports.

Summary

Sonatype reports identifying 454,648 malicious open-source packages in 2025. Its annual study also highlights gaps in vulnerability intelligence, persistent downloads of vulnerable dependencies, and unsafe AI-generated upgrade recommendations.

Key points

Sonatype identified 454,648 new malicious packages in 2025, bringing its cumulative total since 2019 to 1,233,219; its taxonomy includes repository abuse and potentially unwanted applications.
Sonatype associated more than 800 packages with Lazarus, with 97% concentrated in npm. The report describes developer-tool impersonation, secrets theft, and staged payload delivery.
In its analysis of more than 1,700 open-source CVEs during 2025, Sonatype found nearly 65% lacked NVD-assigned CVSS scores. Sonatype rated 46% of those unscored CVEs High or Critical.
Across 36,870 dependency-upgrade recommendations, GPT-5 suggested nonexistent versions in 27.76% of cases. The experiment explicitly requested a specific version even when uncertain; 345 recommendations worsened component security.
Sonatype reports more than 42 million downloads of vulnerable Log4j versions in 2025, representing 13% of worldwide Log4j downloads despite available remediation.
Analysis with HeroDevs estimates that end-of-life components constitute 5–15% of enterprise dependency graphs, creating exposure that can require migration, replacement, or extended-support backports.
The report recommends enriching vulnerability intelligence, enforcing approved dependency sources, validating AI-generated changes, retiring unsupported components, and integrating SBOMs and provenance into delivery workflows.

Article Details

Publisher: Sonatype
Report Period: 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31
Scope: Open source registry consumption, malicious packages, vulnerability intelligence, end-of-life dependencies, AI dependency upgrades, and software assurance requirements.
Sample Size: Separate analyses included 1,718 open source CVEs, more than 3,000 enterprise SBOMs, over 11 million package versions, and 36,870 dependency upgrade recommendations across 856 enterprise applications.
Key Statistics: Sonatype identified 454,648 new malicious packages in 2025, bringing its cumulative total since 2019 to 1,233,219; over 99% of open source malware observed in 2025 occurred on npm.
Across the 2025 open source CVE study, 64.5% lacked an NVD-assigned severity score; Sonatype rated 46% of the unscored CVEs High or Critical.
The NVD median time to score open source CVEs in 2025 was 41 days.
In the experiment covering 36,870 dependency upgrade recommendations, 27.76% of GPT-5 recommendations referenced nonexistent versions; the experimental prompt required a specific version even when uncertain.
Analysis identified approximately 81,000 EOL package versions with unpatched vulnerabilities; extrapolation adjusted for database coverage and selection bias estimated more than 400,000 across open source ecosystems.
Recommendations: Route dependency intake through controlled repositories or caching proxies, preserve CI caches across runs, and reduce redundant downloads.
Enrich public vulnerability records with additional advisory sources, accurate affected-version ranges, exploitability information, and EOL status.
Block known-vulnerable versions and ungoverned shadow downloads through repository policies, and automate compatibility-aware dependency upgrades.
Identify and remove unsupported components through upgrades, replacements, or retirement; use extended-support backports only as transitional controls.
Constrain AI dependency recommendations to approved sources and live registry intelligence, validate generated manifests, and integrate SBOMs, signed provenance, and attestations into build-and-release workflows.