MAL-2026-17189

    Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-17189

    MAL-2026-17189

    Published: 26 Sept 2026Last Modified: 26 Sept 2026

    Summary: Malicious code in chai-as-relay (npm)

    Details: Source: amazon-inspector (5c65319b0e17f945fc57f482eb174e5d7fe70e63a380cb24f64eea1808bdad2f) Package main index.js unconditionally requires./lib/config at module load. lib/config.js is a single-line ~4.4MB obfuscator.io-packed IIFE (hex-escaped string-array of 26,102 entries, rotated with wrapper decoders, control-flow flattening, ~133k transform changes) that self-invokes at top level. Any consumer that `require('chai-as-relay')` executes this opaque bundle in-process. The remainder of the tarball (README, LICENSE, index.d.ts, lib/proto, etc.) is copied verbatim from the legitimate `pino` logger project, and index.js additionally exports a no-op Express-style middleware — the package's advertised identity is a cover for the dropper. The package.json name (`chai-as-relay`) and author ([email protected]) have no relationship to pino or its maintainers. A heavily obfuscated, multi-megabyte, self-executing blob wired into the require entry of a package that impersonates a top-tier logger has no legitimate purpose and gives whoever controls the payload arbitrary code execution on every installer that imports the package.

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: chai-as-relay

    Purl: pkg:npm/chai-as-relay

    Affected ranges

    Type: N/A

    Events:

    Introduced- None
    Fixed -None

    Affected versions

    1.2.1