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https://www.productionai.institute/graph/events/evt-aiid-731

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Production AI Institute public record · theregister.com: Purportedly Hallucinated Software Packages with Potential Malware Reportedly Downloaded Thousands of Times by Developers · observed 2025-04-20
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incident event
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theregister.com: Purportedly Hallucinated Software Packages with Potential Malware Reportedly Downloaded Thousands of Times by Developers

Large language models have reportedly hallucinated non-existent software package names, some of which were subsequently uploaded to public repositories and incorporated into real codebases. In one case, a package named huggingface-cli, which was purported to have been originally suggested by an AI model, was downloaded more than 15,000 times. This dynamic enables what security researchers have termed "slopsquatting," in which attackers register hallucinated package names and…

AI Incident Database · Incident 731

Operator lens (medium): inspect D2 (output validation), D6 (autonomy oversight), D7 (tool permissions).

Confidence
82%
Sources
3
Entities
14
Detected
detected 453d ago

Event summary

Large language models have reportedly hallucinated non-existent software package names, some of which were subsequently uploaded to public repositories and incorporated into real codebases. In one case, a package named huggingface-cli, which was purported to have been originally suggested by an AI model, was downloaded more than 15,000 times. This dynamic enables what security researchers have termed "slopsquatting," in which attackers register hallucinated package names and…

D2D6D7

Linked entities

  • OpenAI

    vendor | 70%

  • Meta

    vendor | 70%

  • Google

    vendor | 70%

  • deepseek-ai

    organisation | 70%

  • cohere

    organisation | 70%

  • bigscience

    organisation | 70%

  • developers-using-ai-generated-suggestions

    organisation | 70%

  • bar-lanyado

    organisation | 70%

  • users-downstream-of-software-contaminated-by-hallucinated-packages

    organisation | 70%

  • trust-in-open-source-repositories-and-ai-assisted-coding-tools

    organisation | 70%

  • software-ecosystems

    organisation | 70%

  • organizations-that-incorporated-fake-dependencies

    organisation | 70%

  • developers-and-businesses-incorporating-ai-suggested-packages

    organisation | 70%

  • alibaba

    organisation | 70%

Related graph edges

EdgeTypeConfidence
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d1maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d1maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d1maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d2maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d2maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d2maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d4maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d4maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d4maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d6maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d6maps to60%
ent-vendor-google to ent-psf-d6maps to60%

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Event dates

  • Happened 1 Dec 2023

  • Detected 20 Apr 2025

Sources

  • AI code helpers just can't stop inventing package names

    secondary | checked 20 Apr 2025

    Open source
  • AI hallucinates software packages and devs download them – even if potentially poisoned with malware

    secondary | checked 16 June 2024

    Open source
  • AI Incident Database - Incident 731

    secondary | checked 9 July 2026

    Open source
Cite this record

"theregister.com: Purportedly Hallucinated Software Packages with Potential Malware Reportedly Downloaded Thousands of Times by Developers." https://www.productionai.institute/graph/events/evt-aiid-731 (observed 2023-12-01; retrieved 2026-07-17). PAI.

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