Two malicious Axios releases briefly published to npm introduced a dependency that installed a remote access trojan across macOS, Windows, and Linux. Axios maintainer Jason Saayman said the compromise began with a targeted social engineering operation in which attackers impersonated a legitimate company, used a convincing Slack workspace and staged meetings, and ultimately gained access to his machine. Once operating from the maintainer environment, the attackers could hijack active npm and GitHub sessions, making controls such as 2FA or OIDC-based publishing ineffective against the already-compromised host. The incident matters because it shows how attackers can bypass package-level controls by compromising the humans and devices that hold release authority for widely used open source infrastructure.