npm’s New Token Limits Won’t Stop the Attacks That Actually Happen

This content originally appeared on HackerNoon and was authored by Bundling data and functions into a single unit

npm's new token lifetime limits (90-day max, 7-day default) and mandatory WebAuthn are good security hygiene, but they don't address how attacks actually happen. The September 2025 breach that compromised 18 packages with 2.6B weekly downloads succeeded via phishing—the attacker had full account access and could generate tokens at will. The XZ Utils backdoor involved three years of social engineering to gain maintainer trust. Token rotation doesn't stop account takeovers, malicious insiders, or the lack of code review. npm is treating the symptom (token exposure) rather than the disease (anyone can publish anything instantly).

This content originally appeared on HackerNoon and was authored by Bundling data and functions into a single unit