Which versions of chai-as-relay are malicious?

The following npm versions of chai-as-relay are flagged malicious: 1.2.1. Treat any of these as compromised.

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

chai-as-relay is a typosquat — you almost certainly intended a legitimately-named package. Remove chai-as-relay, 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-relay — how do I know if it already compromised me?

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

Yes — chai-as-relay is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-020563 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-relay 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-relay (version 1.2.1). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging chai-as-relay across your stack and pipelines.

Malicious package

chai-as-relaynpm

chai-as-relay is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-17189) that typosquats a legitimate package to trick installs (malicious version 1.2.1). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in chai-as-relay (npm)

MAL-2026-17189

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall chai-as-relay

What this malware does

Package main index.js unconditionally requires./lib/config at module load. lib/config.js is a single-line ~4.4MB obfuscator.io-packed IIFE (hex-escaped string-array of 26,102 entries, rotated with wrapper decoders, control-flow flattening, ~133k transform changes) that self-invokes at top level. Any consumer that require('chai-as-relay') executes this opaque bundle in-process. The remainder of the tarball (README, LICENSE, index.d.ts, lib/proto, etc.) is copied verbatim from the legitimate pino logger project, and index.js additionally exports a no-op Express-style middleware — the package's advertised identity is a cover for the dropper. The package.json name (chai-as-relay) and author ([email protected]) have no relationship to pino or its maintainers. A heavily obfuscated, multi-megabyte, self-executing blob wired into the require entry of a package that impersonates a top-tier logger has no legitimate purpose and gives whoever controls the payload arbitrary code execution on every installer that imports the package.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

1.2.1

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

5c65319b0e17f945fc57f482eb174e5d7fe70e63a380cb24f64eea1808bdad2f

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-relay (version 1.2.1). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging chai-as-relay across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
chai-as-relay is a typosquat — you almost certainly intended a legitimately-named package. Remove chai-as-relay, 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-relay 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-relay 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-relay on npm has been identified as a malicious package (version 1.2.1 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-020563

References

npmjs.com

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks chai-as-relay-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

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