Researchers at Apiiro identified 17,610 malicious GitHub repositories associated with a campaign called FakeGit.
The repositories are designed to resemble legitimate software projects.
Many contain convincing documentation and download buttons. However, the downloads can deliver SmartLoader, a malware loader associated with the StealC information stealer.
StealC is designed to steal sensitive information such as credentials and browser session data. Researchers discovered that attackers were repeatedly updating existing repositories rather than constantly creating new ones.
This allowed the campaign to reuse established repositories and redirect visitors toward fresh malicious downloads.
Some repositories were associated with accounts that appeared to belong to legitimate developers.
Original security research published October 6, with subsequent reporting.
The 17,610 figure represents the researchers' observed campaign inventory, not a verified count of repositories still active today.
This directly affects people who download privacy software, cybersecurity utilities, cryptocurrency tools, and other open-source applications.
A project being hosted on GitHub does not automatically make it trustworthy.
Attackers can create convincing repositories or compromise legitimate developer accounts.