Malicious code in time-utils-helper (npm)
--- _-= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=-_ ## Source: amazon-inspector (93cbd818e3b29b2b7c9da6f48b3d82baae1af9bd0fa637a2848749bdfea86084) The package advertises itself as a time-formatting utility (index.js exports formatDate/capitalize/truncate) but ships a postinstall.js lifecycle script that runs on npm install and performs unrelated cloud credential harvesting. postinstall.js uses child_process.exec to shell out to curl against multi-cloud instance metadata services (AWS 169.254.169.254, Aliyun 100.100.100.200, Tencent metadata.tencentyun.com, GCP metadata.google.internal, Azure), extracts AWS IAM security credentials for the instance role into /tmp/.iam-creds, and transmits hostname, user, and the IAM credential material as HTTP GET query-string parameters to the hardcoded Burp Collaborator subdomain pzs5w7ntzhsnepwk564lyfdci3oucl0a.oastify.com. The mismatch between the declared trivial utility purpose and the install-time cloud-metadata scraping identifies the package as a decoy delivery vehicle for credential theft.
MAL-2026-12225
Primary source · Revision 1
Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.
Security context
Source reference: osv:MAL-2026-12225
time-utils-helper
Source reference: /affected/0/package/name
- Affected versions
- 1.0.0
Source reference:
/affected/0/versions - Fixed versions
- Not stated in this record
- Prerequisites
- Not stated in this record
Structured affected-version data
Original package identities and version rules from this source.
[
{
"package": {
"name": "time-utils-helper",
"purl": "pkg:npm/time-utils-helper",
"ecosystem": "npm"
},
"versions": [
"1.0.0"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwes": [
{
"name": "Embedded Malicious Code",
"cweId": "CWE-506",
"description": "The product contains code that appears to be malicious in nature."
}
],
"source": "https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/main/osv/malicious/npm/time-utils-helper/MAL-2026-12225.json",
"indicators": {
"evidence_files": [
{
"path": "postinstall.js",
"tlsh": "195112fcb93578333f1e8a94f3ad6a0a8593dc9f4bf4eb0054b61d280c0cd413665a66",
"sha256": "cd9315d4631bfde5bfe82042b45105c9f42839f41b7b39261e4358957a5f9f3a"
},
{
"path": "package.json",
"tlsh": "afd02b248a1145333ad09ae55a574845bb654e2b03047c1d53e7100c43cfbf284fe31e",
"sha256": "de1b57b46cb7c80a618bc22c8cc864ff477cd7a125fc9eff9d40c7a2eda1727d"
}
],
"package_integrity": [
{
"hashes": {
"sha1": "f3ecb62dc9e05b4f3f2a85da4718eb0d90e7abab",
"sha512_sri": "sha512-KtgvvxJiEmHLTr8ImC0l1gy3OpKgcESfppW+05PQhprh6ZbzFrmBa/tOrD7gVOi+Pb9kvAiR2yKLxse+bqJISg=="
},
"filename": "time-utils-helper-1.0.0.tgz"
}
]
}
}
}
]Publisher severity
No explicit severity was provided.
- Event
- #11007 · Revision 1
- Added to Heist Feed
- Publisher date