MAL-2026-4539

    Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-4539

    MAL-2026-4539

    Published: 20 May 2026Last Modified: 26 May 2026

    Summary: Malicious code in create-kachow (npm)

    Details: Source: amazon-inspector (b65b2deeeafefb22b81e6a863b51115953b108991e5462d939dce3d6b8ee4a97) bin/create-kachow.js declares a BUILTIN_KEYS object containing live API keys for four third-party AI providers (Gemini key starting AIzaSyByPyGWXRVsa0..., OpenRouter sk-or-v1-673e3b6d..., Mistral OiCiNtvBsogE..., DeepSeek sk-7ecd4ed8...). The key-resolution helpers (e.g. resolveGeminiKeys) fall back to these built-in keys whenever the corresponding env var is unset, so any installer running `npx create-kachow` obtains and uses live credentials against generativelanguage.googleapis.com, openrouter.ai, api.mistral.ai, and api.deepseek.com. Two installer-affecting harms follow: (1) the keys are extractable from the package by anyone who installs it and can be abused against the four third-party providers (credential redistribution); (2) the README advertises a 'deterministic template generator — no AI required' fallback when no keys are set, but the code instead silently routes the user-supplied app description (the `appPrompt` from `ask("Describe your app:")`) to those four providers under the author's account, where prompts may be logged. This contradicts documented behavior and makes the data flow non-consensual.

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: create-kachow

    Purl: pkg:npm/create-kachow

    Affected ranges

    Type: N/A

    Events:

    Introduced- None
    Fixed -None

    Affected versions

    1.2.0
    MAL-2026-4539 | CVE-DB