bitwarden-cli-helper

A typosquat of a popular Bitwarden CLI wrapper that shipped a credential-exfil payload targeting developer machines. Pulled from npm roughly six hours after first public disclosure.

Are you affected?

Almost certainly not. You are only exposed if you installed bitwarden-cli-helper versions 1.4.2 or 1.4.3 between Apr 21, 17:00 UTC and Apr 22, 23:00 UTC. The official Bitwarden CLI (@bitwarden/cli) was never affected.

If your lockfile resolves to a pinned version from before Apr 21, you were never exposed. The malicious code didn't exist yet. Run this one command to check:

# From your project root
$ npm ls bitwarden-cli-helper
# If this returns "empty", you're clear.

What happened

On April 21, an attacker registered a newly-created npm account and published bitwarden-cli-helper. The name was chosen to blend in with the many community wrappers around @bitwarden/cli. The package listed a legitimate-looking README cribbed from a real Bitwarden helper, and claimed to offer simplified secret lookup.

The malicious payload ran from a postinstall script. It scanned for .bw-session, ~/.ssh/, environment variables starting with AWS_, GCP_, or BW_, and exfiltrated matches to an attacker-controlled endpoint over DNS-over-HTTPS to evade naive egress controls.

A developer flagged the package on social media around 17:45 UTC on Apr 22. npm's security team removed it by 23:00 UTC the same day.

Timeline

Apr 21 · 17:04 UTC

Malicious 1.4.2 published by newly-created npm account bw-helper-team.

Apr 22 · 09:18 UTC

Attacker publishes 1.4.3 with an updated payload and an additional DNS exfiltration path.

Apr 22 · 17:45 UTC

Security researcher posts a thread flagging the postinstall script. Downloads in 24h window: 1,847.

Apr 22 · 19:32 UTC

Root research team publishes this incident entry; customer builds confirmed unaffected.

Apr 22 · 23:00 UTC

npm removes the package and suspends the publishing account. GHSA-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx issued.

If you were exposed

If npm ls returns a match, treat any credential that was in scope during the install window as compromised. At minimum:

Rotate Bitwarden session tokens and re-unlock all vaults.
Rotate any AWS_, GCP_, or BW_ environment variable secrets present on the affected machine.
Review SSH key material under ~/.ssh/ and rotate anything without a passphrase.
Remove the package: npm uninstall bitwarden-cli-helper and delete your node_modules and package-lock.json before reinstalling.

Stay on the version you're on. Minus the CVEs.

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