MAL-2026-14437

    Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-14437

    MAL-2026-14437

    Published: 24 Aug 2026Last Modified: 24 Aug 2026

    Summary: Malicious code in ppb-manticore (npm)

    Details: Source: amazon-inspector (2558d8bae443d40330d8166eec921f02de17b395b4359a086a0f12792b026422) On npm install, the package's preinstall lifecycle script collects the installer's OS username, hostname, and current working directory, walks upward through parent directories to read the enclosing project's package.json (name, author, version), hex-encodes the aggregated JSON, splits it into 60-character DNS labels with a sequence prefix, and issues dns.lookup() queries to the hardcoded nameserver da5u87oh92rc72pp1dngqfc6hp8gwshm6.o.jgl.red. The channel uses DNS rather than HTTP, evading HTTP/proxy egress controls, and fires automatically without user interaction. A source comment framing the behavior as bug-bounty or dependency-confusion research does not alter the mechanism: installer-side identity and enclosing-project identifiers are transmitted to a third-party author-controlled destination.

    References: https://www.npmjs.com/package/ppb-manticore/v/9.4.3

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: ppb-manticore

    Purl: pkg:npm/ppb-manticore

    Affected ranges

    Type: N/A

    Events:

    Introduced- None
    Fixed -None

    Affected versions

    9.4.3
    MAL-2026-14437 | CVE-DB