Why does my package manager still confuse my internal packages with public ones?

Most organizations maintain private packages in an internal registry alongside public dependencies from npm or PyPI. When a build tool resolves a name, it can silently prefer a public version if an attacker publishes a package with the same name at a higher version number, because no registry enforces cryptographic namespace ownership for private scopes. Microsoft documented 33 malicious npm packages actively exploiting this in May 2026, targeting nine separate enterprise organizational scopes. Orca Security reports that 49 percent of organizations have at least one asset vulnerable to this class of attack. No major package ecosystem has shipped a standard that lets a build tool reject a public package that shadows a declared internal one.