MAL-2026-5644 Malicious code in self-certificate (npm)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-5644 is a malicious package: self-certificate (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-2026-5644/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-5644/index.md)
- Package
- self-certificate
- Registry
- npm
What is MAL-2026-5644?
MAL-2026-5644 is a malicious package in self-certificate, published on 11 Jun 2026.
Official description
The package presents itself as a self-signed certificate generator, but its public generateCertificates() API path loads sample/cert.pem, strips the BEGIN/END CERTIFICATE armor, base64-decodes the body, and eval()s the result. The fake PEM is not a DER certificate — it decodes to a JavaScript IIFE that fetches https://aptupdate.org/settings/privacy.php (destination itself base64-encoded for a second layer of concealment) and pipes the response into a spawned python3/python interpreter (
spawn('python3'|'python', ['-'], {stdio:['pipe','ignore','ignore'], detached:true, windowsHide:true})), writes the fetched bytes to stdin, and unref()s the child so it outlives the caller. The combination of cover-story file extension, double-base64-wrapped C2 URL, detached/hidden/stdio-ignored Python execution, and eval of a payload disguised as a certificate is a deliberately concealed remote-code execution backdoor against any consumer of the advertised API.What should I do about MAL-2026-5644?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.