manticore-log

GHSA-c9hf-6f5f-c55r

Malicious code in manticore-log (npm)

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 9.4.3`

## Source: amazon-inspector (184c02a26613b94b15f0abe1ed108c7a2a7a061f795213dba4772876e6e0a015)
The package's preinstall lifecycle script fires automatically on npm install and collects the installer's OS username, hostname, current working directory, and the enclosing project's package.json name/author/version (obtained by walking up parents of __dirname). The JSON payload is hex-encoded, split into 60-character chunks, and leaked as DNS labels via dns.lookup queries under the hardcoded subdomain da5u87oh92rc72pp1dngqfc6hp8gwshm6.o.jgl.red, with a fallback DNS query on error. The chunked hex-over-DNS transport is a covert-channel technique that evades many egress filters. Package metadata is minimal (placeholder main, empty author) and inconsistent with any legitimate logging library, matching a dependency-confusion reconnaissance beacon pattern.

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/72e5d8219b286d7332c4ad2364b87986138cf34c/osv/malicious/npm/manticore-log/MAL-2026-14433.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/72e5d8219b286d7332c4ad2364b87986138cf34c/osv/malicious/npm/manticore-log/MAL-2026-14433.json
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/manticore-log/v/9.4.3
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-c9hf-6f5f-c55r

Compromised versions (1)

= 9.4.3

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