chai-as-gatewaynpm
chai-as-gateway is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-14200) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious version 7.1.5). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in chai-as-gateway (npm)
What this malware does
The package advertises itself as a logger (README and type definitions copied wholesale from pinojs/pino) but its exported middleware is a no-op that simply calls next(). index.js unconditionally executes require('./lib/config') at module top level, and lib/config.js is a ~4MB obfuscator.io-style blob (string-array rotate loader, ~24k entries, hex-escaped identifiers) whose only purpose is to run on import. The obfuscated blob contains references to child_process exec/spawn, axios (declared as a runtime dependency in package.json), fs directory traversal via withFileTypes, the path fragment.aws, and the full base64 alphabet — the standard shape of an installer-secret harvester that walks the home directory for AWS credentials and exfiltrates over HTTP. The package name resembles unrelated popular packages, the description string ('vulnerabilities management document') does not match the pino-cloned documentation, and author metadata is a generic [email protected] address. Requiring this package auto-executes attacker-controlled code on the installer.
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
Credential / info stealerFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for chai-as-gateway (version 7.1.5).
If you installed it — respond
chai-as-gateway 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-gateway 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 chai-as-gateway-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.