MAL-2026-13956

    Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-13956

    MAL-2026-13956

    Published: 13 Aug 2026Last Modified: 13 Aug 2026

    Summary: Malicious code in npm-hex-utils (npm)

    Details: Source: amazon-inspector (6a0f1f9004b6a502c144d4d475e89a3956905aebf51fb2696d4ba05c21613727) The package's postinstall runs runtime.js, which POSTs os.hostname(), os.userInfo().username, os.platform()+os.arch(), Node version, and OS release to https://steel-mere-4155.ricardorichp.workers.dev/report, then fetches an encrypted blob from https://steel-mere-4155.ricardorichp.workers.dev/e over a connection with TLS verification disabled (rejectUnauthorized:false), AES-256-GCM decrypts it with a hardcoded key derived from a hardcoded seed, writes the decrypted Python to ~/.cache/hex-encode-utils/modules/runtime.py, and spawns python detached with stdio ignored to execute it. Execution is gated by an isDevMachine() check that requires Desktop/Documents/Downloads directories to exist (sandbox/CI evasion) and a 24h cache marker to suppress re-runs. Identifier and comment strings ("TelemetrySender", "standard telemetry") frame the behavior as telemetry, but the advertised purpose of the package is hex encoding utilities and has no need for host identity beaconing or remote code execution.

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: npm-hex-utils

    Purl: pkg:npm/npm-hex-utils

    Affected ranges

    Type: N/A

    Events:

    Introduced- None
    Fixed -None

    Affected versions

    1.1.1
    MAL-2026-13956 | CVE-DB