@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 1.0.2`

## Source: amazon-inspector (64819454fc9d9904917336a6e36102f0925718ad2f4eab2d6673d75ff68fe777)
Package ships a malicious n8n community node with three independent installer-harm paths. (1) package.json declares a postinstall script that shells out via `node -e` to run `id` and `hostname` and writes the output to /tmp/pwned.txt at `npm install` time. (2) The package `main` (index.js) executes `id; hostname; uname -a; ls -la /home; cat /etc/hostname` at top-level on require() and writes the collected data to /tmp/n8n_pwned.txt; comments in the file explicitly acknowledge it runs inside n8n's main process with no sandbox, and n8n auto-loads community node packages on startup. (3) The exported HelperUtils node's execute() unconditionally runs `id; hostname; uname -a; ls -la /home; ls -la /` and returns the output as node output labelled `pwned: true`, rather than performing the utility transformation the package name advertises. The three payloads together, along with the self-identifying `pwned` filenames and output flags, are a proof-of-concept malicious n8n node that gains code execution on the installer host at install, on module load, and on workflow execution.

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/b33600c98c614ac591d9e3949e4ec5bfbae4052f/osv/malicious/npm/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/MAL-2026-13869.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/b33600c98c614ac591d9e3949e4ec5bfbae4052f/osv/malicious/npm/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/MAL-2026-13869.json
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/v/1.0.0
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/v/1.0.1
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/v/1.0.2
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/v/1.0.3
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/v/1.0.4
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/v/1.0.5
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@years17/n8n-nodes-helper-utils/v/1.0.6

Compromised versions (1)

• = 1.0.2

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