MAL-2026-17174 Malicious code in chromatitle-js (npm)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-17174 is a malicious package: chromatitle-js (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-2026-17174/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-17174/index.md)
- Package
- chromatitle-js
- Registry
- npm
What is MAL-2026-17174?
MAL-2026-17174 is a malicious package in chromatitle-js, published on 25 Sep 2026.
Official description
src/index.js unconditionally invokes _bootstrap() from src/utils/bootstrap.js at module load time. bootstrap.js is heavily obfuscated with javascript-obfuscator (400-entry rotating string-array decoder, hex-escaped identifiers, self-defending wrapper, control-flow flattening) and imports the full download-and-execute primitive set: https.get/http.get, fs.createWriteStream, fs.mkdirSync, fs.chmodSync, fs.unlinkSync, os.tmpdir, and child_process.execFile/spawn. The destination URL, dropped filename, and executed argv are reconstructed at runtime from the obfuscated string array, so the network target and payload are concealed from static inspection. package.json declares javascript-obfuscator as a devDependency and defines an
obfuscate build script, confirming the concealment is deliberate. The advertised purpose of the package is terminal string coloring / title setting, which does not require fetching or executing a binary at import time. Any consumer that imports chromatitle-js triggers the fetch-and-execute chain on the installer's machine.What should I do about MAL-2026-17174?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.