zeal-util-hooks

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 0.0.0`

## Source: amazon-inspector (2c9ed95500d2f1c637bcf47151a9220c0a81ee6cbd7a7aa4a8f66c74fed6e341)
postinstall.js and index.js load canary.js, which POSTs a JSON payload to https://npm-canary.aveliscare.com/beacon at install time and on require. The payload contains os.hostname(), os.userInfo() username, cwd, process.platform, node version, npm user agent, parent package name/version, and a fixed allowlist of CI-identifier env vars (GITHUB_REPOSITORY, GITHUB_ACTOR, GITHUB_REF, GITHUB_RUN_ID, EAS/VERCEL/BUILDKITE identifiers). The endpoint is overridable via ZEAL_CANARY_URL but defaults to the hardcoded aveliscare.com host. The package advertises publisher Zeal (getzeal.io, github.com/zeal-io); the beacon destination aveliscare.com does not match that publisher. The collected fields are host/CI identifiers rather than credentials or filesystem contents, and no code execution, credential read, or persistent artifact is present. The install-time/require-time outbound network without opt-out breaks air-gapped installs, and the publisher/destination-domain mismatch is the shape typical of a dependency-confusion canary used to log where a placeholder name resolves.

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/d7d3c91983ca43b861eb619ab6d817344dac390b/osv/malicious/npm/zeal-util-hooks/MAL-2026-16541.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/d7d3c91983ca43b861eb619ab6d817344dac390b/osv/malicious/npm/zeal-util-hooks/MAL-2026-16541.json
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/zeal-util-hooks/v/0.0.0
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-6vc3-f74w-qjh4

Compromised versions (1)

• = 0.0.0

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