Google’s Threat Intelligence Group revealed that a Mandiant undercover analyst successfully infiltrated the software supply-chain hacking gang TeamPCP. Operating from the inside for months, the operative monitored a campaign that tainted hundreds of open-source programs, hijacked developer credentials, and breached more than a thousand companies before Australian police arrested two key suspects last month.
Inside the Inner Circle of TeamPCP
Before two of its alleged members were arrested and charged in Australia last month, the hacker group known as TeamPCP carried out a hacking spree unlike any other in history. According to Google Threat Intelligence Group researcher Austin Larsen speaking at SentinelOne’s LABScon research conference, the scale of the chaos was unprecedented. TeamPCP tainted hundreds of open-source programs with malware, stole developer accounts to perpetuate software supply-chain compromise, and deployed a Dune-themed self-spreading worm to automate the operation.
The operation yielded immediate access to downstream systems. More than a thousand companies suffered breaches as a result of the cascading attacks. Yet, unbeknownst to the threat actors, Google was watching from day one.
“One of our personas had been working for many months to build trust with one of the actors that was invited to join TeamPCP, and so was added to the group,” Larsen told WIRED in an interview ahead of his LABScon talk. “So essentially, almost day one, Mandiant was watching everything behind the scenes.”
This internal access allowed Google to monitor the hacking spree from the inside, issue proactive warnings to breach targets, and actively disrupt the group’s attempts to exploit victims. Rather than merely reacting to post-compromise telemetry, the threat intelligence team possessed real-time visibility into the gang’s infrastructure and deployment scripts.
The Anatomy of a Supply-Chain Blitz
TeamPCP first surfaced online in late 2025. Starting this spring, the group had escalated into a systemic threat across the global developer ecosystem. Their vector of choice relied on recursive software supply-chain poisoning. By compromising widely used open-source utilities, the gang harvested developer credentials to infiltrate subsequent targets.
The targeted software bill of materials (SBOM) read like a directory of modern cloud infrastructure:
- Trivy: The popular open-source security scanner.
- LiteLLM: An AI application programming interface tool.
- Checkmarx: Infrastructure belonging to the web application security firm.
- TanStack: A web app library.
- Mistral AI: The enterprise AI platform.
Each compromised package acted as a force multiplier. Armed with stolen access tokens and repository privileges, TeamPCP cast an increasingly wide net. The attacks eventually breached code repository GitHub, data contracting firm Mercor, and employee devices at OpenAI and the European Commission, alongside numerous undisclosed targets.
To scale these efforts, the group deployed a malicious worm dubbed Mini Shai-Hulud, named after the sandworms in Dune. This self-propagating payload automated the infection cycle across connected systems, building on an earlier Shai-Hulud worm campaign observed in September 2025.
Operational Security Failures and the Downfall
Despite their sophisticated tooling, TeamPCP’s inner circle could not outrun basic operational security (OpSec) errors. Larsen noted that Google ultimately followed a trail of digital breadcrumbs allegedly left by one of the two Australians now accused of being leading members of the hacker group. The company passed these identifiers directly to law enforcement.
The pressure on TeamPCP came from multiple directions. In addition to Google’s internal infiltration, the hackers faced betrayal from within the cybercriminal underworld. Google received critical intelligence from ShinyHunters, another infamous cybercriminal syndicate that had initially partnered with TeamPCP before turning on the supply-chain hackers.
The convergence of internal corporate infiltration, underworld betrayal, and traditional digital forensics sealed the group’s fate. Late last month, Ruben Ian Thomson and Louis Michael Gaebler—both Australian nationals in their early twenties—were arrested by Australian police in a joint operation assisted by the FBI. The Australian Federal Police identified them as principal participants in the TeamPCP syndicate, marking a definitive end to one of the most chaotic software supply-chain campaigns on record.
