Hundreds of Malicious Packages Force RubyGems to Suspend Registrations

New account registrations on RubyGems.org, the official Ruby gem hosting service, have been suspended after threat actors published hundreds of malicious packages.  RubyGems maintainers announced on May 12 that registrations have been temporarily disabled due to a “DDoS attack”.  Nearly 24 hours later, registrations are still disabled and will likely remain closed for another 2-3 days until account creation rate limiting can be tightened and WAF protection is enabled. According to RubyGems maintainers, the service was targeted in “spam activity” that involved bot accounts pushing more than 500 junk packages, including ones carrying exploits.  The malicious packages have been removed from the registry, and existing packages have not been compromised. An investigation into the incident is ongoing, but at this point it appears that end users were not targeted.  “Gem installs and pushes for existing users are unaffected,” RubyGems said on its status page.  Maciej Mensfeld of the RubyGems security team noted in a post on X that the attack appears to have targeted RubyGems itself, with the attackers attempting XSS attacks and data exfiltration. “My worry with this RubyGems attack: it could be masking something more sophisticated. No proof, just a security researcher’s intuition. Hope I’m wrong,” Mensfeld said. Related: TanStack, Mistral AI, UiPath Hit in Fresh Supply Chain Attack Related: Checkmarx Jenkins AST Plugin Compromised in Supply Chain Attack Related: Claude Mythos Finds Only One Curl Vulnerability; Experts Divided on What It Really Means WRITTEN BY Eduard Kovacs Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is senior managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher before starting a career in journalism in 2011. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering. More from Eduard Kovacs Apple Patches Dozens of Vulnerabilities in macOS, iOS Claude Mythos Finds Only One Curl Vulnerability; Experts Divided on What It Really Means Frame Security Emerges From Stealth With $50M for Awareness and Training Platform Google Detects First AI-Generated Zero-Day Exploit Cloudflare Lays Off 1,100 Employees in AI-Driven Restructuring New ‘Dirty Frag’ Linux Vulnerability Possibly Exploited in Attacks Polish Security Agency Reports ICS Breaches at Five Water Treatment Plants Ransomware Group Takes Credit for Trellix Hack Latest News ICS Patch Tuesday: New Security Advisories From Siemens, Schneider, CISA Microsoft Patches 137 Vulnerabilities Exaforce Raises $125 Million for Agentic SOC Platform Adobe Patches 52 Vulnerabilities in 10 Products White Circle Raises $11 Million for AI Control Platform BWH Hotels Says Hackers Had Access to Reservation Data for 6 Months Free OnlyFans Lure Used to Spread Cross-Platform CRPx0 Malware Deal Reached With Hackers to Delete Data Stolen From the Canvas Educational Platform Trending Webinar: ROSI For CPS Security Programs May 13, 2026 In cyber-physical systems (CPS), just one hour of downtime can outweigh an entire annual security budget. Learn how to master the Return on Security Investment (ROSI) to align security goals with the bottom-line priorities. Register Virtual Event: Threat Detection And Incident Response Summit May 20, 2026 Delve into big-picture strategies to reduce attack surfaces, improve patch management, conduct post-incident forensics, and tools and tricks needed in a modern organization. Register People on the Move Malwarebytes has named Chung Ip as Chief Financial Officer. Semperis has appointed John Podboy as Chief Information Security Officer. Randy Menon has become Chief Product and Marketing Officer at One Identity. More People On The Move Expert Insights Is The SOC Obsolete, And We Just Haven’t Admitted It Yet? Many AI-first enterprises have already embraced sovereign architectures for general AI initiatives; cybersecurity—and the SOC—should be next. (Danelle Au) The Mythos Moment: Enterprises Must Fight Agents With Agents Only with the right platform and an agentic, AI-driven defense, will enterprises be able to protect themselves in the agentic era. (Etay Maor) Why Cybersecurity Must Rethink Defense In The Age Of Autonomous Agents From autonomous code generation to decision-making systems that initiate actions without human intervention, the industry is entering a new phase. (Torsten George) Government Can’t Win The Cyber War Without The Private Sector Securing national resilience now depends on faster, deeper partnerships with the private sector. (Steve Durbin) The Hidden ROI Of Visibility: Better Decisions, Better Behavior, Better Security Beyond monitoring and compliance, visibility acts as a powerful deterrent, shaping user behavior, improving collaboration, and enabling more accurate, data-driven security decisions. (Joshua Goldfarb) Flipboard Reddit Whatsapp Email