MAL-2026-6096 Malicious code in requests-middleware (npm)

The package masquerades as a typosquat of the legacy request/requests HTTP library, copying that project's README, dependencies, and source files verbatim, with a malicious dropper grafted on. Its sole exported function middleware (index.js:117-122) detached-spawns node lib/logger.js with { detached: true, stdio: 'ignore' } and immediately unref()s the child, so the loader runs silently and outlives the parent process. lib/logger.js then uses axios to GET https://www.jsonkeeper.com/b/YL7GN, extracts the JS payload from the response's Cookie field, and evaluates it with new Function.constructor('require', s)(require), retrying up to 5 times. This grants attacker-controlled JavaScript full require access in the consumer process. The remote URL is disguised in lib/logger.js:4-8 as DEV_API_KEY inside a fake process.env-shaped object to look like benign configuration. jsonkeeper.com is an anonymous, author-mutable paste host, so the executed bytes can change at any time without any package update. Any application that imports this package and invokes the default middleware export will execute remote attacker code.