MAL-2026-14336 Malicious code in arrayref (crates.io)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-14336 is a malicious package: arrayref (crates.io). 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-2026-14336/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-14336/index.md)
- Package
- arrayref
- Registry
- crates.io
What is MAL-2026-14336?
MAL-2026-14336 is a malicious package in arrayref, published on 20 Aug 2026.
Official description
arrayref 0.3.10 was published to crates.io from a maintainer account (droundy) that appears to be compromised. Unlike every prior release, 0.3.10 declares a dependency on the malicious crate proc-macro1. The arrayref source itself is unchanged genuine macro code, but Cargo compiles the declared dependency, so building any project that resolves arrayref 0.3.10 pulls in and builds proc-macro1, whose build script downloads and executes an architecture-specific remote binary at build time from https://23.254.165.112:9089/ and passes 23.254.165.112:443 as a command-and-control address. Part of a coordinated crates.io campaign on 2026-08-20 that also trojanized internment and append-only-vec. The malicious release has been removed from crates.io; releases 0.3.9 and earlier are unaffected.
What should I do about MAL-2026-14336?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.