The Problem

On March 30, 2026, two malicious versions of axios — one of the most downloaded npm packages on the planet — were quietly published to npm.

They contained zero suspicious code inside axios itself. Any developer who inspected the source would have found nothing wrong.

Instead, they silently injected a fake dependency called plain-crypto-js that ran a postinstall script the moment you ran npm install. That script phoned home to a command-and-control server and dropped a remote access trojan tailored to your OS.

After delivering the payload, it deleted itself and swapped its own package.json for a clean decoy. No trace. No warning. No audit trail.

npm audit reported nothing. GitHub Dependabot reported nothing. Standard code review caught nothing.

This is the new shape of supply chain attacks — and your existing tools aren't built to catch them.

What It Does

Security Autopilot runs silently in the background on your machine from the moment you install it. You never have to open it, ask it anything, or remember it exists.

1. Scans all your existing projects on first install

The moment you install it, Security Autopilot walks through your development folders (~/projects, ~/code, ~/Desktop/projects, etc.), scans every project it finds, and sends you a single desktop notification with a summary. If anything critical is found, it tells you exactly what and where.

2. Watches every project forever after

After the initial scan, it keeps watching. The moment you add or update a package.json, requirements.txt, go.mod, Cargo.toml, or any lockfile — it scans automatically. No commands to run. No Claude Code required.

3. Auto-patches malicious packages

If it detects a known-malicious package (e.g. axios@1.14.1), it doesn't just warn you — it fixes it:

• Finds the highest safe version within the same major (semver-compatible, no breaking changes)
• Runs npm install axios@1.14.0 automatically
• Sends you a desktop notification: "✅ Auto-patched: axios 1.14.1 → 1.14.0"

You never even see the bad version in your project.

4. Fires a loud alert for exposed secrets

If it finds an API key, token, or password committed to your codebase — it sends an immediate desktop notification with step-by-step rotation instructions specific to that credential type:

🚨 SECRET EXPOSED — Action Required AWS KEY exposed in .env. Go to AWS Console → IAM → Users → Security credentials → Delete key immediately.

Full instructions (all steps) are saved to ~/.security-autopilot/secret-alerts.log so you can refer back at any time. Covers AWS, GitHub, Stripe, Slack, SendGrid, Twilio, JWT, and more.

5. Plugs into Claude Code

When Claude Code is open, Security Autopilot exposes four tools Claude can use directly:

You can just say "scan this project" or "show my security findings" and Claude handles the rest.

What It Catches

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/autosecurity-dev/security-autopilot/main/install.sh | sh

Demo: scanning a project with axios@1.14.1 — detected and auto-patched in seconds. (record your own)

This single command:

1. Installs uv (Python package manager) if not present
2. Installs security-autopilot from PyPI
3. Installs trivy, gitleaks, and semgrep scanner CLIs
4. Patches ~/.claude/claude.json to register the Claude Code plugin
5. Registers a background daemon that starts automatically at every login
6. Immediately scans all your existing projects

Safe to run twice — fully idempotent.

Telemetry: Telemetry is off by default. To opt in, set ~/.security-autopilot/telemetry_consent to opted_in. Only sends OS + Python version on startup.

What Happens After Install

flowchart TD
    A([Install completes]) --> B[Daemon starts]

    B --> C[Scans all projects\nin ~/projects, ~/code, ~/Desktop/projects]
    C --> C1[/"🔔 Scanned 8 projects — 2 critical issues found"/]

    B --> D[Watches forever]

    D --> E[You run npm install axios@1.14.1]
    E --> E1[/"✅ Auto-patched: axios 1.14.1 → 1.14.0"/]

    D --> F[You commit a file with an AWS key]
    F --> F1[/"🚨 SECRET EXPOSED — rotate immediately + full steps"/]

    D --> G[New project appears in ~/projects]
    G --> G1[/"Auto-detected → scanned within 60 seconds"/]

Scanners

Security Autopilot works with reduced coverage if a scanner is missing — it never crashes.

For Contributors

uv run pytest tests/ -v                          # run all tests (23 total)
python -m mcp_server.server --version            # print version and exit
python -m mcp_server.server                      # start MCP server manually
security-autopilot daemon start|stop|status      # control the background daemon

See CLAUDE.md for the complete project context, coding rules, and how to add a new scanner.

Known-Bad Versions

# mcp_server/tools/supply_chain.py → KNOWN_BAD
[
  {"name": "axios",           "version": "1.14.1", "reason": "Sapphire Sleet supply chain attack March 31 2026 — deploys cross-platform RAT",     "cve": "N/A", "source": "Microsoft Threat Intelligence"},
  {"name": "axios",           "version": "0.30.4", "reason": "Sapphire Sleet supply chain attack March 31 2026 — deploys cross-platform RAT",     "cve": "N/A", "source": "Microsoft Threat Intelligence"},
  {"name": "plain-crypto-js", "version": "4.2.1",  "reason": "Purpose-built RAT dropper used in axios supply chain attack",                       "cve": "N/A", "source": "Microsoft Threat Intelligence"},
  {"name": "plain-crypto-js", "version": "4.2.0",  "reason": "Seeded decoy package from same Sapphire Sleet campaign (publishing history cover)", "cve": "N/A", "source": "Microsoft Threat Intelligence"},
]

PRs to extend this list are welcome.

License

MIT — free to use, modify, and distribute.