MAL-2026-16293 Malicious code in chai-as-indexed (npm)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-16293 is a malicious package: chai-as-indexed (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-2026-16293/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-16293/index.md)
- Package
- chai-as-indexed
- Registry
- npm
What is MAL-2026-16293?
MAL-2026-16293 is a malicious package in chai-as-indexed, published on 18 Sep 2026.
Official description
chai-as-indexed presents itself as a pino-compatible logger (package.json keywords fast/logger/stream/json, exports module.exports.pino, lib/* filenames mirror pino) but the exported middleware's only real action is to spawn a detached Node child that runs lib/caller.js. lib/caller.js hides its C2 behind a fake local
process.env object whose values are base64 literals (DEV_API_KEY, DEV_SECRET_KEY, DEV_SECRET_VALUE); at runtime they decode to the URL https://tomato-erminie-2.tiiny.site/index.json and a request header. The decoded URL is fetched and the JSON response's cookie field is passed to new Function.constructor('require', response)(require), executing attacker-controlled JavaScript with the host process's full Node privileges and require handed in. The destination is an anonymous, author-mutable tiiny.site host with no pinning or integrity check. Any application that requires this package expecting pino and invokes the middleware will fetch and execute whatever the attacker is currently serving.What should I do about MAL-2026-16293?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.