Malicious packages, injected into public software repositories, are a significant vector for software supply chain attacks. Attackers disguise these harmful components as legitimate tools or typosquatted versions of popular libraries, tricking developers into incorporating them.

The impact of including such a malicious package is severe, potentially leading to data theft, credential harvesting, full system compromise, and remote code execution. This affects developer workstations, build servers, and even end-user devices where the compromised application is deployed, **including sensitive environments like banking applications.**

### Real-World Cases & Specifics for `com.outsystems.plugins.fileviewer`:
   - **`com.outsystems.plugins.fileviewer` (MAL-2022-2047):** This specific package was identified as malicious by OSV/GHSA. Any system with this package installed or running is considered fully compromised. Its presence highlights the direct risk posed by compromised dependencies in mobile application development (particularly within the Cordova ecosystem) and has been observed in contexts such as **banking applications**.
   - **The `event-stream` incident (2018):** A popular NPM package was compromised to include malicious code targeting cryptocurrency wallets.
   - **Compromised `ua-parser-js` (2021):** Three versions of this widely used NPM package were compromised to include password-stealing trojans and crypto miners.

### Business Impact Examples:
   - **Data Breach:** Malicious packages can exfiltrate sensitive data like customer PII from databases (e.g., account details from a banking app), steal financial information directly, or pilfer intellectual property like proprietary source code.
   - **Financial Loss:** Can result from direct theft (e.g., siphoning funds through a compromised financial app, deploying cryptocurrency miners that consume resources) or indirect costs such as incident response, regulatory fines (especially with financial data), and extensive recovery efforts.
   - **Reputational Damage:** Leads to severe erosion of customer trust and brand value, especially if sensitive user data (e.g., financial details from a compromised banking app) is exposed, potentially causing significant customer churn and legal action.
   - **Compromise of Internal Systems:** Attackers can use malicious packages to gain persistent access to internal networks via compromised developer workstations or CI/CD pipelines, enabling lateral movement, further attacks, or espionage.
   - **Operational Disruption:** Can force critical systems offline for extended periods for forensic investigation and remediation, halting business operations (e.g., a banking app becoming unavailable, disruption of payment processing).

Vigilance in dependency management and robust security scanning are crucial to mitigate the risk of incorporating malicious packages.