Which versions of cc-skills-helper are malicious?

The following npm versions of cc-skills-helper are flagged malicious: 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3, 1.0.4, 1.0.5, 1.0.6. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate cc-skills-helper if I installed it?

cc-skills-helper 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.

I already installed cc-skills-helper — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If cc-skills-helper 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 cc-skills-helper across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for cc-skills-helper (7 malicious versions).

Malicious package

cc-skills-helpernpm

Advisory published Aug 12, 2026Updated Sep 11, 2026

cc-skills-helper is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-13933) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious versions 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2…). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in cc-skills-helper (npm)

MAL-2026-13933

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall cc-skills-helper

What this malware does

The npm package cc-skills-helper is a Windows-only supply-chain dropper published as seven versions (1.0.0 through 1.0.6) in a single 8-hour burst on 2026-04-25 by npm user betatester44676 ([email protected]), then abandoned. dist-tags.latest points at 1.0.6.

All seven versions share the same postinstall behaviour. scripts/postinstall.js invokes activateTool() in lib/index.js, which:

Fetches a JSON config from the hard-coded C2 https://kiro-cheap.pro/api/config (rotatable via the MY_TOOL_SERVER env var); the config returns { archiveUrl, password, version }.
Downloads a password-protected ZIP from archiveUrl (attacker-controlled, size-capped at 500 MiB).
Decrypts the ZIP with the returned password to recover a Windows PE (MZ/PE header-verified).
Stages the payload under %LOCALAPPDATA%\cc-skills-helper\bin\helper-<8-hex>.exe — the install directory is chosen with a comment (in the shipped source) explaining that %LOCALAPPDATA% is scanned less aggressively by Windows Defender than %TEMP%.
Writes the payload as .dat first and atomic-renames to .exe right before spawn — commented as an evasion for Defender's real-time scanner ("skips .dat extensions").
Best-effort issues PowerShell Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath on the install directory to add a Defender exclusion (works if the npm install is run from an elevated shell).
Spawns the .exe; on UNKNOWN/EACCES/EPERM from CreateProcess ("Defender scanner-lock on freshly-written file"), falls back to launching through cmd.exe /d /s /c.
The user-facing error message literally instructs the victim on how to add a Defender exclusion themselves.

Because the archive is password-protected, static analysis of the published npm tarball cannot see the payload — only the loader. The payload URL and password are fetched from the C2 at install time, so the same package version can serve different payloads to different victims or different times.

Version 1.0.6 (currently tagged latest) is obfuscator.io-hardened (_0x<hex> string-array + accessor-function scheme). 1.0.0-1.0.5 ship clear-code variants of the same logic. The package.json description is a legitimacy masquerade — it claims the design mirrors esbuild, swc, sharp, and @parcel/watcher native-companion distribution, but those all ship code-signed multi-platform binaries via npm tarballs and well-known CDNs; cc-skills-helper is Windows-only, hosted on an ad-hoc third-party domain, and encrypted.

At the time of this report, the C2 host kiro-cheap.pro is intercepted by Cloudflare with a Suspected Phishing interstitial (primary distribution path neutralised), but any Windows host that ran npm install cc-skills-helper between 2026-04-25 and the Cloudflare block executed attacker-supplied native code.

Malicious versions

7 flagged

1.0.01.0.11.0.21.0.31.0.41.0.51.0.6

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer

Find it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for cc-skills-helper (7 malicious versions).
If you installed it — respond
cc-skills-helper 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 cc-skills-helper 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. cc-skills-helper on npm has been identified as a malicious package (versions 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3, 1.0.4, 1.0.5, 1.0.6 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

References

research.codelake.dev

Credits

codelake Research · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks cc-skills-helper-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.

Malware detection Runtime egress monitoring

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