{"answers":{"affected":"1 open source package ship an affected version, including agency-test-exercise.","exploited":"There is no known exploitation of MAL-2026-17170 in the wild and no public exploit code.","fix":"Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.","what":"MAL-2026-17170 is a malicious package in agency-test-exercise, published on 25 Sep 2026."},"fix_prompt":"MAL-2026-17170 is a malicious package: agency-test-exercise (npm). Every version was published to cause harm.\n\nTask:\n1. Search this repository's dependency manifests and lockfiles for the package, including transitive dependencies.\n2. If it is present, remove it, regenerate the lockfile with the project's package manager, and replace whatever it was used for.\n3. List any CI runners, developer machines or containers that installed it, so their secrets can be rotated.\n4. If the package is not used anywhere, say so and change nothing.\n\nReference: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-17170/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-17170/index.md)","id":"MAL-2026-17170","markdown":"https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-17170/index.md","name":"MAL-2026-17170","record":{"aliases":[],"analysis":null,"analysis_generated_by":null,"assigner":null,"cpe":[],"cvss":{"score":null,"severity":null,"source":null,"vector":null,"version":null},"cwes":[],"description":"package.json declares a postinstall hook `wscript.exe 4444.vbs` that fires automatically on `npm install`. The shipped 4444.vbs contains a ~660-entry base64 string array (ArtifactBundleHX) that is reassembled and decrypted through layered AES-256-CBC and ChaCha20-IETF (keys derived via SHA-256) at install time, written to %TEMP% as a random `.dat` file, and passed to powershell.exe as a two-tier loader for in-memory execution / process hollowing. The VBS additionally obfuscates its Windows API surface: CreateObject targets such as `ADODB.Stream` and `Msxml2.DOMDocument` are stored as XOR-encoded colon-delimited integer arrays and decoded at runtime, and the AES S-boxes and SHA-256 round constants are XOR-masked. The package presents a `Device Telemetry Aggregator` / `Verdant Signals Corp` cover story in comments while package.json ships empty author and description fields. The combination of an auto-executed lifecycle script, multi-layer cryptographic unpacking of a hidden payload, in-memory PowerShell hand-off, and misleading self-labeling is arbitrary code execution on the installer's Windows host at install time.","ecosystems":["npm"],"exploits":{"exploitdb":null,"first_seen":null,"github_poc":null,"max_poc_stars":null,"metasploit":null,"nuclei":null,"refs":[],"tier":null},"has_fix":false,"headline":"Malicious code in agency-test-exercise (npm)","id":"MAL-2026-17170","indexable":true,"kev":null,"kind":"malicious","links":{"ecosystem":"npm","product":null,"products":[],"type":null,"year":"2026"},"n_packages":1,"n_references":null,"packages":[{"ecosystem":"npm","fixed":[],"introduced":[],"last_affected":[],"package":"agency-test-exercise","purl":"pkg:npm/agency-test-exercise","source":"MAL-2026-17170"}],"products":null,"published":"2026-09-25","related":[],"sources":[{"class":"attribution","licence":"Apache-2.0","name":"OpenSSF Malicious Packages","prefix":"MAL"}],"ssvc":{"automatable":null,"exploitation":null,"technical_impact":null},"state":null,"updated":null,"vendors":null},"summary":null,"url":"https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-17170/"}