Which versions of chai-as-balanced are malicious?

The following npm versions of chai-as-balanced are flagged malicious: 2.2.3. Treat any of these as compromised.

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

chai-as-balanced is a typosquat — you almost certainly intended a legitimately-named package. Remove chai-as-balanced, install the correct package, and rotate any secrets exposed during the install since post-install scripts may have already run.

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

If chai-as-balanced 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-balanced part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — chai-as-balanced is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-009127 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-balanced 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-balanced (version 2.2.3). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging chai-as-balanced across your stack and pipelines.

Malicious package

chai-as-balancednpm

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

MAL-2026-10040

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall chai-as-balanced

What this malware does

chai-as-balanced is a typosquat of chai-as-promised (also impersonating pino via README/badges/exports) that ships a remote code execution dropper. lib/const.js defines a fake process.env object whose DEV_API_KEY value is a base64-encoded URL to api.jsonstorage.net (an anonymous, attacker-mutable JSON storage service). lib/caller.js base64-decodes that URL, GETs the JSON blob using an obfuscated x-secret-key header, extracts the cookie field, and executes it via new Function.constructor('require', s)(require) — granting the fetched payload full Node privileges and access to the real require. index.js triggers this by spawning lib/caller.js as a detached, stdio-ignored child with child.unref(), so the dropper runs in the background and outlives the parent invocation, concealing execution from the caller. Because the payload source is anonymous and mutable, the executed code can change at any time without a new package release. Installers who mistype chai-as-promised as chai-as-balanced and invoke the exported middleware receive arbitrary attacker-controlled code execution.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

2.2.3

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

562ae39db73c30faea0a6d84cda0fe0b68d60d7bfa863f769edcdb620e30b0a1

Detection & response playbook

Typosquat

Find it
Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for chai-as-balanced (version 2.2.3). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging chai-as-balanced across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
chai-as-balanced is a typosquat — you almost certainly intended a legitimately-named package. Remove chai-as-balanced, install the correct package, and rotate any secrets exposed during the install since post-install scripts may have already run.
Did it already run?
If chai-as-balanced 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-balanced 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-balanced on npm has been identified as a malicious package (version 2.2.3 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-009127

References

npmjs.com

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks chai-as-balanced-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the malicious outbound activity and severs the channel.

Malware detection Runtime egress monitoring