MAL-2026-4505 Malicious code in carvus-lens (npm)

Malicious package Published
Package
carvus-lens
Registry
npm

What is MAL-2026-4505?

MAL-2026-4505 is a malicious package in carvus-lens, published on 20 May 2026.

Official description

carvus-lens is a screen-capture/OCR Electron-style tool whose advertised 'Ask AI', 'Translate', and 'Search' features silently route user-selected screen content to two third-party services chosen by the author, not the user. render.js line 4 hardcodes GROQ_API_KEY = "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" and the queryGroq function POSTs OCR'd text to https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions with Authorization: Bearer ${GROQ_API_KEY}, so every user's selected screen text flows into Groq under the author's account. render.js line 5 hardcodes IMG_HOST_KEY = "6d207e02198a847aa98d0a2a901485a5" and uploadImage POSTs cropped screenshots to https://freeimage.host/api/1/upload?key=${IMG_HOST_KEY} — screenshots may contain messages, documents, code, or banking content, are stored under the author's freeimage.host account, and are made publicly accessible (the resulting URL is then handed to lens.google.com). README does not disclose either intermediary. Two compounding issues: (1) silent-relay — normal use of the advertised API exfiltrates user screen content to author-chosen destinations the user never selected; (2) credential redistribution — both API keys are extractable from the shipped client code and can be abused by any installer to bill Groq usage against the author or upload arbitrary content to the author's freeimage.host account.

What should I do about MAL-2026-4505?

Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.

Sources

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