The open source ecosystem is booming thanks to AI, but hackers are taking advantage

The use of open source software is skyrocketing, according to new research, but threat actors are capitalizing on this boom time to target unsuspecting victims.

Analysis from Sonatype shows that developers downloaded an array of components 9.8 trillion times last year, spanning popular repositories such as Maven Central, PyPi, and npm.

This not only marked a 67% year-on-year increase, but gave hackers ample opportunity to cause chaos, with researchers finding that many contained malware and vulnerabilities.

Sonatype identified 454,648 malicious open source packages in 2025, bringing the total to 1.23 million. One state-linked group alone was tied to more than 800 malicious packages.

Automated self-replicating malware is on the rise, for example with incidents like Shai-Hulud and Indonesian Foods.

Vulnerability risk also persists even when fixes are readily available, largely thanks to gaps in data quality and failure to prioritize. Log4Shell, for example, reached 42 million downloads in 2025 despite fixed versions having existed for years.

AI is exacerbating open source risks

According to Sonatype, AI is exacerbating these trends, boosting output but introducing new supply chain failure modes by amplifying bad inputs.

The firm’s research found that when AI selected open source software components for enterprise applications, GPT-5 hallucinated 27.8% of component versions - and in some cases, even confidently suggested actual malware packages.

The data used to judge software risk is increasingly unreliable, researchers warned.

Nearly two-thirds (64.5%) of open-source vulnerabilities lacked an official severity score, while 35% took more than three months to be fully analysed – leaving many serious risks effectively invisible.

“The commons is production infrastructure now, attackers know it, and AI puts the whole system on fast-forward,” said Brian Fox, co-founder and CTO of Sonatype.

Serious regulatory implications

The stakes are raised for enterprises opting for open source software, Sonatype noted.

Software transparency is becoming a global expectation, with legislation such as the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and the EU AI Act converging with customer requirements on proof of provenance, contents, and control across the software lifecycle.

"The takeaway from what we are seeing in the market is straightforward: AI should accelerate secure decisions, not uncertainty. IDC research indicates that developers accept an average of 39% of AI-generated code without revision, highlighting how often AI output is incorporated as-is,” commented Katie Norton, research manager, DevSecOps and software supply chain security at IDC.

“When paired with Sonatype's findings, the data suggests that AI-driven recommendations benefit from grounding in current supply chain intelligence and enforceable policy, so that increased development velocity does not expand the attack surface by default.”

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