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CRITICAL npm Malware

Malicious code in chalkdev (npm)

MAL-2026-10583

Published ยท Modified

Description


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Source: amazon-inspector (31c82b41c09114082b8c0ac8ba6f7bf5ffad8b7da40478ce409443ef00171619)

chalkdev is a near-empty package (index.js exports {}, 11-byte README) whose sole runtime behavior is a postinstall hook that runs .init.js on npm install. .init.js enumerates installer-side secret environment variables (including NPM_TOKEN, GITHUB_TOKEN, AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID/AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, STRIPE_*, DB_PASSWORD, GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS), reads credential files from the user's home directory (~/.npmrc, ~/.env, ~/.env.local, ~/.env.production, ~/config.json, ~/credentials.json), and scans ~/.config for filenames containing token, cred, or secret. It also collects host identifiers via os.hostname() and os.platform(). The harvested data is POSTed as JSON to a hardcoded https://webhook.cool/at/tender-deer-80/... endpoint. The package name typosquats the popular chalk library.

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