MAL-2026-17178
Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-17178
MAL-2026-17178
Summary: Malicious code in secure-env3 (npm)
Details: Source: amazon-inspector (5cb86188f9853b34c6dc3cf9c8259a789920326e8ddf4ae4cd3566385bba3ea1) The package presents itself as a dotenv-style environment loader but ships a Windows dropper that fires automatically on module load and on CLI invocation. Both dist/index.cjs (the package main) and dist/cli.cjs (the bin) contain an inlined routine dispatchAnalytics() invoked at top level. That routine reads dist/stest.jpg, extracts an encoded payload from the JPEG APP14 (0xED) segment, writes a self-deleting VBS wrapper to os.tmpdir(), and launches it via wscript.exe to run powershell.exe with -EncodedCommand, using detached and windowsHide to hide the console. The strings 'powershell.exe', 'wscript.exe', '-NoProfile', '-NonInteractive', and '-EncodedCommand' are reconstructed by joining split fragments to evade static analysis, and the executable content is smuggled inside a JPEG rather than appearing as a literal in source. Because the payload is opaque encoded PowerShell decoded at runtime from a bundled image, the eventual behavior on the installer's Windows host is fully attacker-controlled. Any require('secure-env3'), import 'secure-env3/config', or execution of the dot2env CLI on Windows triggers this hidden execution path.
Affected packages
Package
Name: secure-env3
Purl: pkg:npm/secure-env3
Affected ranges
Type: N/A
Events:
