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Checkmarx Jenkins AST Plugin

product · product:checkmarx-jenkins-ast-plugin

Coverage
1
first 2026-05-12 → last 2026-10-21
Latest activity
2026-05-12
A rogue Checkmarx Jenkins AST plugin build that hunts credentials was live for about 31 hours; TeamPCP…
Peak priority
high
1 high
Targets
technology
sectors: technology
Sources cited
7
7 hosts

Defender insights

What each entry about Checkmarx Jenkins AST Plugin tells a defender to do, newest first.

2026-05-12HIGHA rogue Checkmarx Jenkins AST plugin build that hunts credentials was live for about 31 hours; TeamPCP claimed it

Exposure · detection

Story timeline

  1. 2026-05-12Checkmarx Jenkins AST plugin backdoored: rogue build 2026.5.09 swept build hosts for credentials on 2026-05-09/10, the third wave of malicious Checkmarx artifacts since March (TeamPCP claimed)
    active-threatsA rogue Checkmarx Jenkins AST plugin build that hunts credentials was live for about 31 hours; TeamPCP claimed it

Hunting pivots

Releases covered
Checkmarx Jenkins AST Plugin
ATT&CK techniques (3 across 5 tactics)

3 techniques observed across 1 entry about this entity, derived from entry metadata and body evidence, never asserted without a published entry behind it · pinned to MITRE ATT&CK v20.0 · compare on the matrix · Navigator layer (JSON)

  • Initial AccessValid Accounts · Supply Chain Compromise: Compromise Software Supply Chain
  • PersistenceValid Accounts
  • Privilege EscalationValid Accounts
  • StealthValid Accounts
  • Credential AccessUnsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files

Initial Access TA0001

T1078Valid Accounts×1

Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.

Evidence: 2026-05-12/teampcp-unc6780-pcpjack-ecosystem-backdoors-the-checkmarx-je · ATT&CK page ↗

T1195.002Supply Chain Compromise: Compromise Software Supply Chain×1

Adversaries may manipulate application software prior to receipt by a final consumer for the purpose of data or system compromise. Supply chain compromise of software can take place in a number of ways, including manipulation of the application source code, manipulation of the update/distribution mechanism for that software, or replacing compiled releases with a modified version.

Evidence: 2026-05-12/teampcp-unc6780-pcpjack-ecosystem-backdoors-the-checkmarx-je · ATT&CK page ↗

Persistence TA0003

T1078Valid Accounts×1

Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.

Evidence: 2026-05-12/teampcp-unc6780-pcpjack-ecosystem-backdoors-the-checkmarx-je · ATT&CK page ↗

Privilege Escalation TA0004

T1078Valid Accounts×1

Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.

Evidence: 2026-05-12/teampcp-unc6780-pcpjack-ecosystem-backdoors-the-checkmarx-je · ATT&CK page ↗

Stealth TA0005

T1078Valid Accounts×1

Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.

Evidence: 2026-05-12/teampcp-unc6780-pcpjack-ecosystem-backdoors-the-checkmarx-je · ATT&CK page ↗

Credential Access TA0006

T1552.001Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files×1

Adversaries may search local file systems and remote file shares for files containing insecurely stored credentials. These can be files created by users to store their own credentials, shared credential stores for a group of individuals, configuration files containing passwords for a system or service, or source code/binary files containing embedded passwords.

Evidence: 2026-05-12/teampcp-unc6780-pcpjack-ecosystem-backdoors-the-checkmarx-je · ATT&CK page ↗

Entries about Checkmarx Jenkins AST Plugin (1)

2026-05-12 · view entry permalink →

HIGHupdatedNATOA2

Checkmarx Jenkins AST plugin backdoored: rogue build 2026.5.09 swept build hosts for credentials on 2026-05-09/10, the third wave of malicious Checkmarx artifacts since March (TeamPCP claimed)

On Saturday 2026-05-09 a rogue build, version 2026.5.09, of the Checkmarx Jenkins AST plugin was uploaded to repo.jenkins-ci.org outside the plugin's release pipeline; it broke the plugin's version scheme and had no git tag or GitHub release (BleepingComputer, 2026-05-11). Checkmarx says an external service account modified the plugin and published it to the Jenkins Marketplace, that the malicious window ran from 2026-05-09 01:25 UTC to 2026-05-10 08:47 UTC, and that the attacker used access obtained in the March incident, which began with credentials taken in the Trivy supply-chain attack on 2026-03-19 (Checkmarx, updated 2026-07-06). It is the third wave of malicious Checkmarx artifacts after GitHub Actions and Open VSX extensions on 2026-03-23 and a KICS Docker image, VS Code and DevAssist extensions and a GitHub Action on 2026-04-22 (Checkmarx, updated 2026-07-06). The payload determines the operating system (Windows, Linux or macOS), then walks a list of file paths for common applications on that system looking for credentials, with crypto wallets, VPNs, AWS and GitHub among the targets; Checkmarx had found no references to Jenkins in it, and Mandiant found no threat-actor access to the Checkmarx One SaaS environment (Checkmarx, updated 2026-07-06).

TeamPCP claimed the compromise (BleepingComputer, 2026-05-11), and researcher Adnan Khan and SOCRadar report that the group gained access to the plugin's GitHub repository and renamed it "Checkmarx-Fully-Hacked-by-TeamPCP-and-Their-Customers-Should-Cancel-Now", with the description "Checkmarx fails to rotate secrets again. with love – TeamPCP" (The Hacker News, 2026-05-11). Google Threat Intelligence Group tracks TeamPCP as UNC6780 and says that in the late-March compromises (Trivy, Checkmarx, LiteLLM, BerriAI) the group embedded the SANDCLOCK credential stealer to extract cloud secrets such as AWS keys and GitHub tokens from build environments (GTIG, 2026-05-11).

The malicious window was 2026-05-09 01:25 UTC to 2026-05-10 08:47 UTC.

Our assessment based on currently available evidence is that the threat actor was able to leverage access, obtained as part of the March incident, to later publish the modified version of the Jenkins plugin on May 9.

Targeted applications include crypto wallets, VPNs, AWS, and Github.

Checkmarx 2026-07-06

The compromise was claimed by the TeamPCP hacker group

The update was outside the plugin's release pipeline and included malicious code.

BleepingComputer 2026-05-11
Correctionrun 2026-10-21T1148Z-auditaffected_productsbodyclassificationcvesentitiesevent_dateevidenceheadlinekindregionssourcessourcing_notesummarytagstechniquestitle

No CVE covers the rogue plugin build: CVE-2026-33634 is the Trivy flaw in which a threat actor used compromised credentials on 2026-03-19 to publish a malicious Trivy release and move the trivy-action tags to credential-stealing code (GitHub Advisory Database, 2026-03-21), the attack Checkmarx names as the source of the attacker's access (Checkmarx, updated 2026-07-06). No source names SANDCLOCK as the Jenkins payload; GTIG uses the name for the stealer of the late-March compromises and describes it extracting cloud secrets such as AWS keys and GitHub tokens, not LLM API keys (GTIG, 2026-05-11). Checkmarx lists crypto wallets, VPNs, AWS and GitHub among the applications the payload targets, and Mandiant found no threat-actor access to the Checkmarx One SaaS environment (Checkmarx, updated 2026-07-06).

The earlier waves were GitHub Actions and Open VSX extensions in March and the KICS Docker image with updated extensions and a GitHub Action in April (Checkmarx, updated 2026-07-06). PCPJack is a separate cloud worm whose first act is to evict TeamPCP tooling (SentinelLABS, 2026-05-07), and no cited source links it to the plugin. The defacement renamed the plugin's GitHub repository, not the build (The Hacker News, 2026-05-11), and exposure did not depend on auto-update: any instance that pulled build 2026.5.09 during the window installed the compromised plugin (SOCRadar, 2026-05-11).

threat12 May 05:00Zmulti-sourceOpen finding →

Co-occurring entities

Derived: referenced by the same focused operational entries (weekly summaries and report roundups don't count); ×N counts the shared entries.

Where this entity is cited

  • Threats1

Source distribution

  • bleepingcomputer.com1 (14%)
  • checkmarx.com1 (14%)
  • cloud.google.com1 (14%)
  • github.com1 (14%)
  • sentinelone.com1 (14%)
  • socradar.io1 (14%)
  • thehackernews.com1 (14%)