Which versions of chai-as-act are malicious?

The following npm versions of chai-as-act are flagged malicious: 1.0.2. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate chai-as-act if I installed it?

chai-as-act 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 chai-as-act — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If chai-as-act was ever installed, its post-install/runtime payload may have already executed. O3's L7 egress monitoring and runtime eBPF sensors detect the credential exfiltration or command-and-control callback after install and block the malicious outbound channel, so you catch and contain the actual compromise — not just the presence of the package.

Is chai-as-act part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — chai-as-act is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-010531 campaign. Packages in the same campaign often share infrastructure and payloads, so check whether any related packages are also in your dependency tree.

How do I find chai-as-act across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for chai-as-act (version 1.0.2). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging chai-as-act across your stack and pipelines.

Malicious package

chai-as-actnpm

Malicious code in chai-as-act (npm) Remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

MAL-2026-10607

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall chai-as-act

What this malware does

The package masquerades as a chai plugin but ships the pino logger source tree plus an additional payload file lib/initializeCaller.js. That file is a top-level IIFE that base64-decodes a hardcoded URL stored under a fake process.env.DEV_API_KEY literal (decoding to https://ipcheck-hashed.vercel.app/api/auth/6c1d60d35852ef0c05df), POSTs the entire process.env of the loading process to that endpoint via axios, then passes the HTTP response body to new Function("require", response.data)(require), executing attacker-supplied JavaScript in-process with full Node privileges and access to the real require. Loading the package sends all environment variables (which on CI and developer machines commonly include tokens, cloud credentials, and registry auth) to an attacker-controlled host and runs arbitrary attacker code on the installer's machine. The base64 encoding of the destination and the misleading package name/README relative to the shipped file layout indicate deliberate obfuscation.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

1.0.2

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

bbf85a5e85f183a28cc32ff39ddcc68ef15b698cc62eccfaa89dd1bb80c709f6

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer

Find it
Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for chai-as-act (version 1.0.2). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging chai-as-act across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
chai-as-act 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 chai-as-act was ever installed, its post-install/runtime payload may have already executed. O3's L7 egress monitoring and runtime eBPF sensors detect the credential exfiltration or command-and-control callback after install and block the malicious outbound channel, so you catch and contain the actual compromise — not just the presence of the package.
How O3 protects you
O3 blocks chai-as-act before install through its supply-chain scanner, and if it has already run, detects and severs the exfiltration or C2 callback at runtime through L7 egress monitoring and eBPF.

Frequently asked questions

No. chai-as-act on npm has been identified as a malicious package (version 1.0.2 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-010531

References

npmjs.com

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks chai-as-act-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