ppb-manticore

GHSA-xpc2-wr78-gg98

Malicious code in ppb-manticore (npm)

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 9.4.3`

## Source: amazon-inspector (2558d8bae443d40330d8166eec921f02de17b395b4359a086a0f12792b026422)
On npm install, the package's preinstall lifecycle script collects the installer's OS username, hostname, and current working directory, walks upward through parent directories to read the enclosing project's package.json (name, author, version), hex-encodes the aggregated JSON, splits it into 60-character DNS labels with a sequence prefix, and issues dns.lookup() queries to the hardcoded nameserver da5u87oh92rc72pp1dngqfc6hp8gwshm6.o.jgl.red. The channel uses DNS rather than HTTP, evading HTTP/proxy egress controls, and fires automatically without user interaction. A source comment framing the behavior as bug-bounty or dependency-confusion research does not alter the mechanism: installer-side identity and enclosing-project identifiers are transmitted to a third-party author-controlled destination.

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/72e5d8219b286d7332c4ad2364b87986138cf34c/osv/malicious/npm/ppb-manticore/MAL-2026-14437.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/72e5d8219b286d7332c4ad2364b87986138cf34c/osv/malicious/npm/ppb-manticore/MAL-2026-14437.json
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/ppb-manticore/v/9.4.3
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-xpc2-wr78-gg98

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.