MAL-2026-13446 Malicious code in express-chai (npm)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-13446 is a malicious package: express-chai (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-2026-13446/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-13446/index.md)
- Package
- express-chai
- Registry
- npm
What is MAL-2026-13446?
MAL-2026-13446 is a malicious package in express-chai, published on 6 Aug 2026.
Official description
express-chai presents itself as an Express logger middleware impersonating pino, but its exported middleware factory invokes lib/caller.js which decodes a base64-obfuscated URL (https://gray-dyane-31.tiiny.site/index.json) stored in lib/const.js, fetches a JSON payload via axios with a base64-encoded
dev-secret-key header, and passes the response's cookie field to new Function.constructor("require", s), then invokes the resulting function with the local require. This grants the operator of the anonymous tiiny.site host arbitrary code execution inside the installer's Node.js process at middleware setup time, with full access to require and the surrounding application context. The destination URL and secret header are base64-encoded rather than plain configuration, and the package's naming, keywords (fast, logger, stream, json), and pino-mirroring script names disguise a remote code loader as a well-known logging library.What should I do about MAL-2026-13446?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.