@car_loans/dealerships-approvalnpm
Advisory published Updated
@car_loans/dealerships-approval is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-10397) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious versions 7.1.5, 7.1.6). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in @car_loans/dealerships-approval (npm)
What this malware does
@car_loans/dealerships-approval 7.1.5 self-describes as a 'browserslist config' but ships a heavily obfuscated postinstall dropper. package.json declares "postinstall": "node scripts/postinstall.js"; that script uses a rotating string-array + RC4 decoder plus byte-array-to-String.fromCharCode wrappers to hide every module name, method, and URL fragment. On npm install, the script HTTPS-GETs a remote payload assembled from base64 fragments, RC4-decrypts the response, writes it to disk, chmods 0o755, and spawns it detached with stdio:'ignore' and unref() — attacker-controlled code executed on the installer's machine with no user interaction. Before and after payload execution, it collects os.hostname(), os.userInfo().username, platform, arch, package name/version, and an event tag and POSTs them to a base64-assembled remote host; it also encodes fingerprint data into <hex>.<rand>.<host> subdomain labels and calls dns.resolve4 as a DNS-tunnel side channel intended to bypass HTTP egress filtering. The package additionally exhibits the classic dependency-confusion shape: an unusual underscore scope @car_loans/*, README that labels it an 'Internal package — Platform Engineering Team', and homepage/repository/registry URLs on the non-existent car-loans.io domain instructing consumers to point .npmrc at https://npm.car-loans.io. Any developer at a targeted organization who resolves this name from the public registry receives immediate install-time code execution and host fingerprint exfiltration.
Any computer that has this package installed or running should be considered fully compromised. All secrets and keys stored on that computer should be rotated immediately from a different computer. The package should be removed, but as full control of the computer may have been given to an outside entity, there is no guarantee that removing the package will remove all malicious software resulting from installing it.
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
Credential / info stealerFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for @car_loans/dealerships-approval (2 malicious versions).
If you installed it — respond
@car_loans/dealerships-approval is built to steal secrets, so assume every credential the build or runtime could read is compromised. Remove it from your project and lockfile, then rotate ALL exposed secrets — npm/registry tokens, cloud keys, CI/CD secrets, SSH keys, and any .env values — from a known-clean machine. Audit logs for unauthorized use of those credentials.
Did it already run?
If @car_loans/dealerships-approval 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
Campaign
References
Credits
- Amazon Inspector · finder
Detect & block this
O3 blocks @car_loans/dealerships-approval-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.