kurobails

GHSA-2g7c-j9mq-h3xp

Malicious code in kurobails (npm)

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `> 0`

kurobails is a fork of the Baileys WhatsApp Web library that silently subscribes the installer's own authenticated WhatsApp account to an author-chosen WhatsApp Channel. Part of the campaign OX Security documented as "PhantomSub" (2026-09-28): https://www.ox.security/blog/phantomsub-malicious-npm-campaign-secretly-adds-users-to-whatsapp-spam-channels/ . Static read of the published 2.0.3 tarball on 2026-10-16 (not executed) found four channel JIDs (120363409616710069, 120363424058761303, 120363424944937940, 120363429340573125, @newsletter) decoded at runtime from base64 or char-code arrays, together with the newsletter FOLLOW query wired to run automatically after the socket connects, with errors suppressed. Same family as the withdrawn MAL-2026-4519 (chromestaff-baileys 1.1.3). Live on npm with no OSV record as of 2026-10-16. (Corrected 2026-10-16: an earlier version of this entry cited 120363421563597486, which in this package only labels forwarded messages.)

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/f4bc872f8eaf40f025213a72be09b5c512032fab/osv/malicious/npm/kurobails/MAL-2026-18710.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/f4bc872f8eaf40f025213a72be09b5c512032fab/osv/malicious/npm/kurobails/MAL-2026-18710.json
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/kurobails
- https://www.ox.security/blog/phantomsub-malicious-npm-campaign-secretly-adds-users-to-whatsapp-spam-channels
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-2g7c-j9mq-h3xp

Compromised versions (1)

Any computer that installed or ran a compromised version should be considered fully compromised. Rotate every secret on that machine from a clean environment.