The developer of the popular open source text editor Notepad++ has confirmed that hackers hijacked the software to deliver malicious updates to users over the course of several months in 2025.
In a blog post published Monday, Notepad++ developer Don Ho said that the cyberattack was likely carried out by hackers associated with the Chinese government between June and December 2025, citing multiple analyses by security experts who examined the malware payloads and attack patterns. Ho said this “would explain the highly selective targeting” seen during the campaign.
Good thing I always ignore notepad++ updates. I mean, good on the devs for active development, but having a user-intervention-required update option every time I launch? Feels clunky.
You would prefer it automatically pull down and install malware?
I think they want them to reduce the release frequency.
Software should have version notification settings like, All, Security Only, Major Release, etc.
While I enjoy staying current, I don’t need the 2.1.3.2.1.000000023 release where someone fixes a minor bug in a niche feature that I have never used to begin with.
I’d love that. Some things I’m willing to be on beta release. Some things I just want to be invisible and silent unless there’s a security problem.
Security updates are critical but otherwise, it seems like every time I “update” it breaks something I finally got working.
I mean, isn’t that what Windows does anyway?
I’d obviously prefer Notepad++ didn’t auto-install malware. Steam and Discord force auto-updates on every launch and do so without user intervention. I haven’t knowingly been burned by either yet, but they’re bigger players with more resources than Notepad++.
Well this sucks
Traffic from certain targeted users was selectively redirected to attacker-controlled malicious update manifests.
I don’t want to sound dismissive, but at the same time, if you’re wondering, “Does this affect me and my computer?” the answer is almost certainly “no.” It’s scary anyway.
I would have guessed NPP had an option to disable check-for-updates every time it starts, but I couldn’t find one.
Yeah it does. It’s in Settings > Preferences > Misc. There’s a dropdown to disable automatic updates.
Thanks, yes, I’ve got “Auto-updater” set to “disable,” but NPP still checks in with the mothership when it starts, and notifies the user when updates are available.
There should be a way to disable that. I swear I’ve disabled it before, but I don’t run Windows anymore, so I can’t check it.
Anyone know if this affected updates through winget?
Last I checked the source of the winget package was github, which is the same on the official website. So I would imagine that updating via Winget is just as vulnerable. The details are super vague.
Edit: Somebody else commented that it was only auto-update that was compromised, and winget would be considered a manual update because it download from their github. So I think winget may be safe.
Dont quote me on that though, the information is still super vague and I am going off of somebody else’s comment.
From their blog post, it seems the software itself and its code was unaffected, but the attack was only on the website?
Sort of. The program uses a specific part of the website for its auto update. And it also didn’t do any kinds of TLS (https) validation (which would prevent changing the destination). They also signed their installers (which would throw an error if the file had been modified) but the auto update didn’t check for a valid signature. So basically the two big things that a browser would do when you visit the site to download the installer, the auto updater just… Wasn’t doing.
So people who visited the site to manually download the installer were fine. They would have been alerted if the TLS cert was invalid or if the installer wasn’t properly signed. But if you used the auto updater, you wouldn’t get any of those errors and it would happily install the malware.
Fuck.
Anyone have an open source alternate that has commensurate features as N++
Getting increasingly paranoid about the software I allow on my devices and now that I have a self-hosted LLM, I can feed it the source code and cross-reference it on 5Gb of CVE databases I’ve trained it on to ensure sanitary code.
Just to be clear, N++ wasn’t compromised, the shared web host running the auto update infrastructure was. They responsibly disclosed it and shared safety steps. I don’t know if it is time to bail on them yet.
Sounds like manual updates were fine?
Yes, that’s the current consensus. Only the auto-update infrastructure was compromised, and it was a shared hosting compromise.
Kate.
Some options are atom, brackets/phoenix, lime text. I went with gVim for now.
Atom’s final release was in 2022.
I just found out it was acquired and buried to promote VS Code. That’s awful.
I already hated it, now I uninstalled it, thank you
Kinda weird you had ‘already hated’ software installed in the first place…
I really don’ remember why i downloaded it. Generally when I first get my PC, I install programs like Sublime, Notepad++, vs code etc. I use Sublime for most of the tasks and it gets bloated, so I sometimes use Notepad++. I wasnt using for the last months. So I uninstalled it. The Json plugin was better than Sublime as far as I remember, maybe that’s why I installed it.
So you install software you already hate first chance you get to new PCs?
Yes. Because i sometimes need it. I hate Windows too dude, but I have to use it, because my company requires it.
Kinda weird.
You are welcome!
