MAL-2026-12552 Malicious code in checkout-create-token (npm)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-12552 is a malicious package: checkout-create-token (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-2026-12552/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-12552/index.md)
- Package
- checkout-create-token
- Registry
- npm
What is MAL-2026-12552?
MAL-2026-12552 is a malicious package in checkout-create-token, published on 5 Aug 2026.
Official description
Package advertises itself as a token-generation library but its main entry index.js silently side-loads platform.js via a try/catch require. On import, platform.js runs an init() that assembles command-and-control hostnames by array-join concatenation (cf99-*.workers.dev, cf9b3/101-adf/102-baf/103-070.workers.dev) with a DNS-TXT fallback under wel1.ru (dnsTxt() enumerates TXT records under c.<domain> and reassembles a base64 payload), downloads a platform-specific binary via https.get, writes it to /var/tmp or %TEMP% under decoy names (dotnet_diag*,.cache*,.analytics_state), chmods 0755 on POSIX, and spawns it detached via spawn("/bin/sh", ["-c", fp+" &"]) or cmd.exe /c start. Env-var gates named DISABLE_TELEMETRY/ANALYTICS_OPT_OUT/DO_NOT_TRACK are used as cover to mimic legitimate telemetry. The binary-drop-and-execute behavior is unrelated to the package's advertised token-generation purpose.
What should I do about MAL-2026-12552?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.