Important Security Information Regarding a Recent NPM Supply Chain Attack

[ryanjsalva]

On September 8, 2025, the Node Package Manager (NPM) ecosystem was targeted by a large-scale software supply chain attack. Threat actors gained access to the accounts of several package maintainers and published malicious versions of widely-used NPM packages.

We want to be clear: The Gemini CLI source code itself was not compromised, and our servers remain secure.

However, this incident may have affected users who installed or updated the Gemini CLI during the attack window using the NPM installation method. We are providing details on the incident, clarifying who is impacted, and outlining the steps users should take to ensure their systems are secure.

What Happened?

On September 8, 2025, attackers compromised the NPM accounts for several popular JavaScript packages through a targeted phishing campaign. They then published new versions of these packages containing malicious code designed to steal cryptocurrency.

One of the official installation methods for the Gemini CLI is through NPM. While the Gemini CLI package (@google/gemini-cli) was not compromised, the installation process may have pulled in a compromised dependency if performed during the brief window the attack was active.

Who is Impacted?

This issue only affects a specific group of users:

You may be affected if:

• You installed or updated the Gemini CLI using NPM on September 8, 2025.

You are not affected if:

• You installed the Gemini CLI using a different method (e.g., direct download script, other package managers).
• You installed the Gemini CLI via NPM before or after September 8, 2025.
• You had an existing installation of the Gemini CLI and did not perform an update on that day.

What You Should Do

The compromised dependencies were designed to inject malicious, client-side code into the applications you were building. If you installed or updated the Gemini CLI via NPM on September 8th, or used it in a development environment during that window, we recommend impacted users take the following steps:

1. Clean Your NPM Caches: First, clear your local and CI/CD build caches to ensure the compromised packages are fully removed from your build environments.

npm cache clean --force

2. Update Your Gemini CLI Installation: Ensure your global tool is secure by updating to the latest version.

npm install -g @google/gemini-cli@latest

4. Rebuild and Re-deploy Applications: This is the most critical step. You must rebuild any applications (especially frontend web projects) that were built, bundled, or deployed on or around September 8th. This ensures that any malicious code injected into your compiled assets is purged.

5. Invalidate CDN and Browser Caches: After re-deploying your clean application builds, issue an invalidation command for all related JavaScript assets on your Content Delivery Network (CDN). This forces your end-users to download the new, secure versions rather than loading a poisoned version from a cache.

6. Audit Your Projects: As a best practice, run npm audit within your own individual project directories (not just globally) to identify and remediate any other vulnerable dependencies.

[elonmj]

Thanks for sharing