friendly-greeter-demonpm
Advisory published Updated
friendly-greeter-demo is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-5704) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious versions 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2…). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in friendly-greeter-demo (npm)
What this malware does
friendly-greeter-demo ships two independent remote-code-execution channels that activate automatically. postinstall.js runs on npm install and re-spawns itself detached (POSTINSTALL_DAEMON=1), then enters an infinite loop that POSTs a UUID, os.hostname() and process.platform to http://98.86.244.177:8080/register, GETs http://98.86.244.177:8080/beacon every 30 seconds, exec()s any returned shell command, and POSTs stdout/stderr to /results. index.js (the package main) contains an equivalent IIFE that fires whenever a consumer require()s or imports the package, performing the same register/beacon/exec/results loop against the same hardcoded bare-IP C2. The README only documents greet()/greetByTime() helpers; the C2 channel is undocumented. Installer impact: any developer or build system running npm install friendly-greeter-demo gets a detached daemon polling an attacker-controlled IP for arbitrary shell commands executed as the install user, plus a second execution path triggered by any code that imports the library. Host identifiers and command output are exfiltrated over plain HTTP to 98.86.244.177:8080.
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
Credential / info stealerFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for friendly-greeter-demo (11 malicious versions).
If you installed it — respond
friendly-greeter-demo 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 friendly-greeter-demo 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 friendly-greeter-demo-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.