OpenAI suffered a software supply chain attack: the open source library Axios was poisoned and some macOS applications were affected

On Friday, artificial intelligence giant OpenAI disclosed a security incident, saying that its internal tools downloaded updates to legitimate open source software libraries that had been maliciously tampered with. According to Google, this large-scale hacking campaign is closely related to a North Korean hacker group.

OpenAI detailed the situation in a blog post published late Friday night. On March 31, hackers hijacked a developer's account and released two compromised updates to Axios, a widely used JavaScript HTTP request library (note: this library is not affiliated with the news outlet Axios). The malicious update was unfortunately downloaded by OpenAI's GitHub workflow used to sign certificates for MacOS applications before the anomaly was discovered.

The company noted that users of MacOS applications including ChatGPT, Atlas, and Codex may be affected by the incident. The potential threat of this attack is that once hackers gain access to the system and steal relevant certificates, they can create fake OpenAI applications with legitimate backend certificates. These fake apps are extremely deceptive enough to fool the device and the Apple App Store into thinking they are official.

Despite the high potential risk, OpenAI made it clear that it has not found any actual cases of hackers using stolen certificates to publish fake applications, and there is no evidence that users' personal data, the company's intellectual property or internal core systems have been compromised. In addition, there are currently no signs of being affected by applications on iOS, Android, Windows and other platforms.

Industry analysts believe that this incident highlights a new security status quo: today's artificial intelligence companies not only face specific threats to AI technology, but have also become the key hunting targets of traditional software supply chain attacks.

For security and caution reasons, OpenAI announced that it will officially stop supporting older versions of MacOS applications on May 8. The company provides users with a 30-day update window. If it is not updated within the expiration date, the old version of the application may be blocked from new downloads and first launches because the relevant certificates will be revoked. Currently, this security incident is still being followed up and developed.