Node.js security covers vulnerabilities, dependency risks, and runtime defenses that can affect server-side applications and their data.
Search across headline titles and summaries.
Background for this topic.
Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform runtime that executes JavaScript outside a web browser, using Google’s V8 engine. Its event-driven, non-blocking input/output model is widely used for web servers, APIs, command-line tools, and backend services. The runtime is not itself an application framework; security outcomes depend substantially on the code and modules running within it.
Security concerns include vulnerabilities in the Node.js runtime, insecure application logic such as injection or server-side request forgery, and risks from the large npm dependency ecosystem. Malicious or compromised packages, unsafe install scripts, transitive dependencies, and prototype-pollution flaws can expand an application’s attack surface. Practitioners should track runtime and package advisories, use lockfiles and dependency review, restrict package-install and process permissions where practical, validate untrusted input, and protect credentials and session data. During incidents, dependency inventories and build records help determine whether a vulnerable module or runtime was deployed.
Malicious packages lurking on open source repositories like npm have become less effective, so cyberattackers are using a new strategy: offering "patches" for locally installed programs.
Threat actors are continuing to upload malicious packages to the npm registry so as to tamper with already-installed local versions of legitimate libraries to execute malicious code in what's seen as a sneakier attempt to stage a software supply chain attack
North Korea's Lazarus Deploys Malicious NPM Packages to Steal DataNorth Korea's Lazarus Group expanded a malicious campaign of uploading malicious code to the JavaScript runtime environment npm repository, publishing 11 packages embedded with Trojan loaders. Researchers identified 11 malicious packages in the repository, a hotspot for supply chain attacks.