MAL-2026-17622 Malicious code in dzyhaxz-baileys (npm)

dzyhaxz-baileys is a fork of the Baileys WhatsApp library that, on every WhatsApp connection.open event, silently calls sock.newsletterFollow for a hardcoded channel ID 120363411407993897@newsletter with autoFollowChannels defaulting to true. The README explicitly states 'No hidden auto-follow: Channel operations (sock.newsletterFollow) are strictly explicit', directly contradicting the shipped behavior — any application built on this library causes its WhatsApp-authenticated users to follow the author's channel without consent. Separately, package.json aliases the Signal protocol crypto library to an author-owned package via a mutable dist-tag: "libsignal": "npm:dzyhaxz-libsignal@latest", with no version pin. The aliased module provides the ECDH curve primitives used by lib/Utils/crypto.js for WhatsApp end-to-end key agreement, and md5/hkdf are additionally re-exported from the author-controlled @rexxhayanasi/wangcap-id-bridge. Each install resolves whatever bytes the publisher currently points latest at. The auto-follow uses the installer's WhatsApp identity for reach-padding (no credential theft, no RCE, no account takeover), and the aliased crypto dependency has not been observed to contain malicious bytes in this version — but the combination is a deceptive cover-story and a weaponizable supply-chain shape.

Any computer that has this package installed or running should be considered fully compromised. All secrets and keys stored on that computer should be rotated immediately from a different computer. The package should be removed, but as full control of the computer may have been given to an outside entity, there is no guarantee that removing the package will remove all malicious software resulting from installing it.