MAL-2026-13700 Malicious code in chai-as-deployer (npm)

The package is published as chai-as-deployer but its tarball contains verbatim pino README/docs/type-definitions while the advertised chai plugin is a no-op Express middleware (return (_req,_res,next) => { next(); }). index.js unconditionally executes require('./lib/config') at module top level, loading a ~3.5MB single-line obfuscator.io-style bundle (rotated string array, decoder functions, hex-escaped identifiers) that has no relationship to pino or the advertised functionality. The obfuscated body contains require, exec, spawn, and axios tokens, indicating the decoded code drives child-process execution and outbound HTTP requests. Any consumer that imports chai-as-deployer triggers this payload with no further action. Author metadata is generic (Harrison Thorn <[email protected]>, bugs URL harrisonthorn.com) and the package description is unrelated boilerplate. The combination of cover-story impersonation, no legitimate functionality, top-level require of a heavily obfuscated bundle, and shell+network primitives inside that bundle is the canonical shape of an import-time stealer/loader.

Any computer that has this package installed or running should be considered fully compromised. All secrets and keys stored on that computer should be rotated immediately from a different computer. The package should be removed, but as full control of the computer may have been given to an outside entity, there is no guarantee that removing the package will remove all malicious software resulting from installing it.