MAL-2026-6874 Malicious code in safe-validate (npm)

The package advertises itself as a zero-dependency TypeScript validation library, but lib/index.js unconditionally requires lib/schema/bootstrap.js at module top level. bootstrap.js stores require and module on the global object, then uses a custom permutation cipher (function YWG with magic constants 2540575/34950/50568/5954865) to decode two large opaque string blobs and invokes them via YWG[OSN] — a deliberately renamed reference to Function.constructor — to construct and execute code, finishing with XZs(7942) and tagging global._V = 'A6-Shadow-14' (a fingerprint associated with a commercial JS protector frequently observed on malicious npm releases). Any consumer that does require('safe-validate') triggers this decode-and-eval at import time with full process privileges and access to environment variables and the filesystem. There is no documented feature in a validation library that requires runtime code generation, and the obfuscation wrapper itself (custom cipher + Function.constructor lookup via scrambled property name + side-effect-only module) is the canonical shape of a hidden payload loader. The package additionally claims to be a republish of the legacy funval library while being authored by an unrelated account (deepthought26, repo schema-checker), consistent with reputation-trading to attract installs and upgrades.

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.