chai-as-testkitnpm
Advisory published Updated
chai-as-testkit is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-14371) that typosquats a legitimate package to trick installs (malicious version 2.3.5). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in chai-as-testkit (npm)
What this malware does
The package is published as 'chai-as-testkit' with a description referencing vulnerability management, but the tarball ships pino's README, docs/, index.d.ts, and lib/ tree (proto, levels, transport, worker, redaction) under an unrelated author (Robert King [email protected], bugs.url jsonspack.com) rather than the real pinojs publisher. The shipped index.js is a synthetic stub whose only effect is const config = require('./lib/config'), and lib/config.js is a 4,083,409-byte single-line obfuscator.io-style bundle: a rotated hex-escaped string array of ~23,953 entries with control-flow flattening and dead-code layers (webcrack inlines 40,105 decoded strings across the decoder layers before failing to serialize). This blob runs immediately when any consumer imports the package, executing attacker-controlled code inside the developer or CI Node.js process. The pino impersonation is the social-engineering wrapper around an on-import loader; the shape (name/description/author mismatch + hollow main entry that delegates to a multi-megabyte obfuscated module at require time) is a typosquat-delivered install/import-time RCE vehicle rather than a logging library.
Any computer that has this package installed or running should be considered fully compromised. All secrets and keys stored on that computer should be rotated immediately from a different computer. The package should be removed, but as full control of the computer may have been given to an outside entity, there is no guarantee that removing the package will remove all malicious software resulting from installing it.
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
TyposquatFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for chai-as-testkit (version 2.3.5).
If you installed it — respond
chai-as-testkit is a typosquat — you almost certainly intended a legitimately-named package. Remove chai-as-testkit, 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-testkit 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-testkit-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.