Which versions of arrayref are malicious?

The following crates.io versions of arrayref are flagged malicious: 0.3.10. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate arrayref if I installed it?

arrayref establishes remote access, so treat any host that installed it as fully compromised. Isolate the machine, remove the package, rotate all credentials it could reach, and rebuild from a trusted image rather than cleaning in place — a backdoor may have planted additional persistence.

I already installed arrayref — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If arrayref was installed, its post-install payload may already have run. Removing the package does not undo that — check outbound connections and credential use from the install window onward.

How do I find arrayref across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for arrayref (version 0.3.10).

Malicious package

arrayrefcrates.io

Advisory published Aug 20, 2026Updated Aug 21, 2026

arrayref is a confirmed malicious crates.io package (MAL-2026-14336) that opens a backdoor for remote access (malicious version 0.3.10). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in arrayref (crates.io)

MAL-2026-14336

Immediate action

Remove the package, then rotate any secrets the build/runtime could reach.

remove arrayref

What this malware does

arrayref 0.3.10 was published to crates.io from a maintainer account (droundy) that appears to be compromised. Unlike every prior release, 0.3.10 declares a dependency on the malicious crate proc-macro1. The arrayref source itself is unchanged genuine macro code, but Cargo compiles the declared dependency, so building any project that resolves arrayref 0.3.10 pulls in and builds proc-macro1, whose build script downloads and executes an architecture-specific remote binary at build time from https://23.254.165.112:9089/ and passes 23.254.165.112:443 as a command-and-control address. Part of a coordinated crates.io campaign on 2026-08-20 that also trojanized internment and append-only-vec. The malicious release has been removed from crates.io; releases 0.3.9 and earlier are unaffected.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

0.3.10

Detection & response playbook

Backdoor / remote access

Find it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for arrayref (version 0.3.10).
If you installed it — respond
arrayref establishes remote access, so treat any host that installed it as fully compromised. Isolate the machine, remove the package, rotate all credentials it could reach, and rebuild from a trusted image rather than cleaning in place — a backdoor may have planted additional persistence.
Did it already run?
If arrayref was installed, its post-install payload may already have run. Removing the package does not undo that — check outbound connections and credential use from the install window onward.

Frequently asked questions

No. arrayref on crates.io has been identified as a malicious package (version 0.3.10 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

References

Credits

SafeDep · finder
jhobern · reporter

Detect & block this

O3 blocks arrayref-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the C2 callback and severs the channel.

Malware detection Runtime egress monitoring

Explore

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