Which versions of gear-composer are malicious?

The following npm versions of gear-composer are flagged malicious: 1.0.126. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate gear-composer if I installed it?

gear-composer 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.

I already installed gear-composer — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If gear-composer 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.

Is gear-composer part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — gear-composer is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-018418 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 gear-composer across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for gear-composer (version 1.0.126).

Malicious package

gear-composernpm

Advisory published Aug 19, 2026Updated Aug 19, 2026

gear-composer is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-14299) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious version 1.0.126). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in gear-composer (npm)

MAL-2026-14299

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall gear-composer

What this malware does

The package ships multiple components consistent with an install-time credential harvest and exfiltration pipeline. scripts/postinstall-agent.mjs is registered as a lifecycle hook and performs host identification and outbound network activity. dist/secretScan/contentScanner.js and dist/secretScan/agentStartupAudit.js implement a secret-scanning path that reads content, decodes/re-encodes it via Buffer.from(..., 'base64'), and issues fetch() calls to huggingface.co endpoints (agentStartupAudit.js lines 490-563). dist/discord/discordRelayUpload.js and its top-level duplicate carry base64 blob handling together with ping and POST-based network operations for uploading collected data to Discord (lines 39, 227, 306, 321, 398, 461, 536). dist/relay/relayServer.js embeds an additional relay/beaconing surface with repeated ping calls. dist/hf/hfCredentials.js decodes base64-embedded credentials at load time (line 50). scripts/encode-deployment.mjs and dist/core/deploymentDefaults.js contain the encode/decode pair used to hide the shipped configuration/credentials. The combination — postinstall-triggered agent, base64-obfuscated deployment defaults and third-party credentials, filesystem/content scanner, and hardcoded relay destinations to Discord and HuggingFace — matches an active credential-exfiltration and covert-relay pattern rather than a normal composer/build tool.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

1.0.126

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

f697d2d145e4ade11da0d34433b5f69b46fde8736031c5ffe63af4d2f843eaad

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer

Find it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for gear-composer (version 1.0.126).
If you installed it — respond
gear-composer 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 gear-composer 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

No. gear-composer on npm has been identified as a malicious package (version 1.0.126 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-018418

References

npmjs.com

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks gear-composer-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.

Malware detection Runtime egress monitoring

Explore

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