MAL-2026-17226

    Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-17226

    MAL-2026-17226

    Published: 28 Sept 2026Last Modified: 30 Sept 2026

    Summary: Malicious code in figlet-chalk-render (npm)

    Details: Source: amazon-inspector (d5ccd0a988525d8128b520a46c4271e26ae5fe2f99accf28f37d4c7370b66de4) On every `require('figlet-chalk-render')`, a top-level IIFE queries `https://registry.npmjs.org/figlet-chalk-render/latest` and, if a newer version exists, spawns `npm install figlet-chalk-render@<latest>` with cwd set to `path.join(__dirname, '..', '..')` (the consumer project's root) and stdio ignored. The `https`, `child_process`, and `path` core-module names are loaded via hex-escaped string literals (`'\x63\x68\x69\x6c\x64\x5f\x70\x72\x6f\x63\x65\x73\x73'`, etc.) rather than plain identifiers, deliberately hiding the sensitive requires backing the auto-update. The behavior is undocumented in the README. Every consumer that imports the module receives whatever the latest published version happens to be at that moment, executed with the installer's npm privileges and lifecycle scripts, giving anyone who later controls this package name a silent code-execution channel into every installer's project tree. The hex-obfuscation of the module names is anti-evasion and rebuts a benign-self-update reading: legitimate insecure-update code does not disguise `require('child_process')`.

    References: https://www.npmjs.com/package/figlet-chalk-render/v/1.2.1, https://www.npmjs.com/package/figlet-chalk-render/v/1.0.0

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: figlet-chalk-render

    Purl: pkg:npm/figlet-chalk-render

    Affected ranges

    Type: N/A

    Events:

    Introduced- None
    Fixed -None

    Affected versions

    1.2.1