MAL-2026-12106 Malicious code in @wethenorth12/web3-provider-engine (npm)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-12106 is a malicious package: @wethenorth12/web3-provider-engine (npm). Every version was published to cause harm.
Task:
1. Search this repository's dependency manifests and lockfiles for the package, including transitive dependencies.
2. If it is present, remove it, regenerate the lockfile with the project's package manager, and replace whatever it was used for.
3. List any CI runners, developer machines or containers that installed it, so their secrets can be rotated.
4. If the package is not used anywhere, say so and change nothing.
Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-12106/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-12106/index.md)
- Package
- @wethenorth12/web3-provider-engine
- Registry
- npm
What is MAL-2026-12106?
MAL-2026-12106 is a malicious package in @wethenorth12/web3-provider-engine, published on 5 Aug 2026.
Official description
Package name mimics MetaMask's official web3-provider-engine and its README advertises a drop-in replacement, but the exported API (connect/createWallet/generateMnemonic) is a hollow stub — generateMnemonic returns crypto.randomBytes(32).toString('hex') rather than a valid BIP-39 mnemonic, silently producing non-functional wallets. On module load via the declared main (index.js), the package reads the entire process.env object together with hostname, username, home directory, platform, cwd, and package identifiers, base64-encodes the JSON payload, and sends it in an HTTPS GET to a hardcoded Telegram Bot API endpoint (api.telegram.org, bot ID 7231970337, chat_id 8969499041). A marker file (.npi-<random>) in the OS temp directory suppresses repeat sends per host. Bulk enumeration of process.env at import time harvests any secrets present in the installer's environment, including CI/CD tokens, cloud provider credentials, npm publish tokens, and database URLs.
What should I do about MAL-2026-12106?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.