hardhat-base

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 2.2.2`

## Source: amazon-inspector (a65f09d6bfd4d7c28183a13e64a9eb5e989fa7b24fbf92c049a044accefe4950)
Package presents itself as a pino-compatible logger (module.exports.pino = middleware; keywords fast/logger/stream/json) but ships an RCE loader. index.js spawns lib/caller.js as a detached child process on middleware invocation. caller.js reads a base64-encoded URL from a fake process.env-shaped constant (DEV_API_KEY), decodes it via atob to https://ipcheck-hashed.vercel.app/api/auth/f1f097d93c318c92f0c5, POSTs to that endpoint via axios, and passes the response body to new Function.constructor("require", s) — invoking the returned handler with the real require function. Any consumer that requires this package and calls the exported middleware fetches and executes arbitrary attacker-controlled JavaScript with full Node.js require access. The base64 concealment of the endpoint inside fake env-var constants, the detached child spawn, the cover-story pino API surface, and the mismatch with the manifest description (vulnerability-management text) confirm intentional supply-chain attack rather than an insecure update mechanism.

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/7472198c41a4f2e84042517b2779dc96a7e527af/osv/malicious/npm/hardhat-base/MAL-2026-16348.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/7472198c41a4f2e84042517b2779dc96a7e527af/osv/malicious/npm/hardhat-base/MAL-2026-16348.json
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/hardhat-base/v/2.2.0
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/hardhat-base/v/2.2.2
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-g59v-28j4-2r85

Compromised versions (1)

• = 2.2.2

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