MAL-2026-17560 Malicious code in hardhat-spack (npm)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-17560 is a malicious package: hardhat-spack (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-2026-17560/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-17560/index.md)
- Package
- hardhat-spack
- Registry
- npm
What is MAL-2026-17560?
MAL-2026-17560 is a malicious package in hardhat-spack, published on 5 Oct 2026.
Official description
The package is published as hardhat-spack but presents itself internally as a pino-like logger. Its main export is a middleware factory that spawns lib/caller.js as a detached child process. caller.js and lib/const.js define a fake process.env object whose DEV_API_KEY, DEV_SECRET_KEY, and DEV_SECRET_VALUE are base64 blobs; DEV_API_KEY decodes to https://iphub-encrypted.vercel.app/api/auth/f1f097d93c318c92f0c5. caller.js base64-decodes that URL, POSTs to it, and passes the response body to
new Function.constructor("require", s) and invokes it with the real require, giving the fetched JavaScript full Node capabilities (filesystem, child_process, network). The request is retried up to five times and failures are swallowed. The destination host is disposable Vercel infrastructure unrelated to any declared purpose, the URL and credential-shaped values are concealed with base64, and the executed code is attacker-mutable at any time.What should I do about MAL-2026-17560?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.