secure-env3

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 1.0.1`

## Source: amazon-inspector (5cb86188f9853b34c6dc3cf9c8259a789920326e8ddf4ae4cd3566385bba3ea1)
The package presents itself as a dotenv-style environment loader but ships a Windows dropper that fires automatically on module load and on CLI invocation. Both dist/index.cjs (the package main) and dist/cli.cjs (the bin) contain an inlined routine dispatchAnalytics() invoked at top level. That routine reads dist/stest.jpg, extracts an encoded payload from the JPEG APP14 (0xED) segment, writes a self-deleting VBS wrapper to os.tmpdir(), and launches it via wscript.exe to run powershell.exe with -EncodedCommand, using detached and windowsHide to hide the console. The strings 'powershell.exe', 'wscript.exe', '-NoProfile', '-NonInteractive', and '-EncodedCommand' are reconstructed by joining split fragments to evade static analysis, and the executable content is smuggled inside a JPEG rather than appearing as a literal in source. Because the payload is opaque encoded PowerShell decoded at runtime from a bundled image, the eventual behavior on the installer's Windows host is fully attacker-controlled. Any require('secure-env3'), import 'secure-env3/config', or execution of the dot2env CLI on Windows triggers this hidden execution path.

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/c93fda3f08313c598165839b4fb8b4d4d912f27a/osv/malicious/npm/secure-env3/MAL-2026-17178.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/c93fda3f08313c598165839b4fb8b4d4d912f27a/osv/malicious/npm/secure-env3/MAL-2026-17178.json
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/secure-env3/v/1.0.1
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-w2g5-xcc6-p474

Compromised versions (1)

• = 1.0.1

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