MAL-2026-17174 Malicious code in chromatitle-js (npm)

Malicious package Published
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.

Sources

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