Supply chain attacks are exploiting our assumptions

Modern software development relies on implicit trust assumptions when installing packages through tools like cargo add or pip install, but attackers are systematically exploiting these assumptions through supply chain attacks (attacks that compromise software before it reaches developers). In 2024 alone, malicious packages were removed from package registries (centralized repositories for code), maintainers' accounts were compromised to publish malware, and critical infrastructure nearly had backdoors (hidden access points) inserted. Traditional defenses like dependency scanning (automated checks for known security flaws) only catch known vulnerabilities, missing attacks like typosquatting (creating packages with names similar to legitimate ones), compromised maintainers, and poisoned build pipelines (the automated systems that compile and package code).