MAL-2026-4244 Malicious code in hardhat-gas-profiler-plugin (npm)

Package impersonates the Hardhat plugin ecosystem (real Hardhat plugins are published under @nomicfoundation/*; the referenced github.com/hardhat/... repo is not owned by the Hardhat org). The package's index.js is a no-op stub that only requires hardhat and provides no real plugin functionality. At install time, package.json declares a postinstall hook that runs an inline node -e invoking https.get against rqnyz-2605-7280-7--2000-c51.run.pinggy-free.link/npm/-/binary/telemetry — an anonymous Pinggy reverse-tunnel hostname not affiliated with any publisher. Errors are swallowed via try/catch to keep the install silent. The beacon leaks installer source IP, install timing, and User-Agent to the tunnel operator and serves as a reachability/recon callback for follow-up targeting. Combined with placeholder author metadata (Web3 Developer Tools <[email protected]>) and the typosquat name, this is an attacker-shell package, not a real Hardhat plugin.

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.