MAL-2026-6919 Malicious code in chai-chain-dom (npm)

Package impersonates the pino logger (exports module.exports.pino, README uses pino badge, keywords mimic pino) but its actual behavior is a remote code loader. When a consumer requires the package and invokes the exported middleware/pino function, index.js spawns a detached node lib/caller.js subprocess (detached:true, stdio:ignore, child.unref()) to hide the activity from the parent process. lib/caller.js then performs an axios GET against https://jsonkeeper.com/b/HIOEN, takes the returned JavaScript from the response's model field, and evaluates it via new Function.constructor("require", src), passing the live require — granting the remotely fetched attacker-controlled code full Node capability (filesystem, network, child_process, environment). jsonkeeper.com is a public paste service whose content the author can change at any time, so the payload is unpinned and mutable. The masquerade-as-pino name and the detached/stdio-ignored spawn indirection are consistent with deliberate delivery of arbitrary code to installers.

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.