MAL-2026-14437 Malicious code in ppb-manticore (npm)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-14437 is a malicious package: ppb-manticore (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-2026-14437/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-14437/index.md)
- Package
- ppb-manticore
- Registry
- npm
What is MAL-2026-14437?
MAL-2026-14437 is a malicious package in ppb-manticore, published on 24 Aug 2026.
Official description
On npm install, the package's preinstall lifecycle script collects the installer's OS username, hostname, and current working directory, walks upward through parent directories to read the enclosing project's package.json (name, author, version), hex-encodes the aggregated JSON, splits it into 60-character DNS labels with a sequence prefix, and issues dns.lookup() queries to the hardcoded nameserver da5u87oh92rc72pp1dngqfc6hp8gwshm6.o.jgl.red. The channel uses DNS rather than HTTP, evading HTTP/proxy egress controls, and fires automatically without user interaction. A source comment framing the behavior as bug-bounty or dependency-confusion research does not alter the mechanism: installer-side identity and enclosing-project identifiers are transmitted to a third-party author-controlled destination.
What should I do about MAL-2026-14437?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.