Which versions of hardhat-cap are malicious?

The following npm versions of hardhat-cap are flagged malicious: 2.21.1. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate hardhat-cap if I installed it?

hardhat-cap is a typosquat — you almost certainly intended a legitimately-named package. Remove hardhat-cap, install the correct package, and rotate any secrets exposed during the install since post-install scripts may have already run.

I already installed hardhat-cap — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If hardhat-cap 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 hardhat-cap part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — hardhat-cap is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-017106 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 hardhat-cap 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 hardhat-cap (version 2.21.1). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging hardhat-cap across your stack and pipelines.

Malicious package

hardhat-capnpm

hardhat-cap is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-13616) that typosquats a legitimate package to trick installs (malicious version 2.21.1). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in hardhat-cap (npm)

MAL-2026-13616

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall hardhat-cap

What this malware does

The package is published as hardhat-cap but its README, LICENSE, index.d.ts, and lib/proto.js / lib/tools.js are a verbatim copy of the pino logger, with author metadata pointing at jsonspack.com. index.js unconditionally does const config = require('./lib/config');, and lib/config.js is a ~4 MB single-line obfuscator.io-transformed module (rotated string array of ~23,931 entries, dual decoders, RC4+base64 string decoding, control-flow flattening) whose top-level IIFE self-invokes at load time. Requiring the package executes this opaque payload on the installer's host at import time; the surrounding pino code is unrelated cover. A logger has no need for a multi-megabyte obfuscated self-decoding blob, and the name/contents mismatch (Hardhat-themed name, pino source, obfuscated third module) is consistent with a typosquat lure that drops arbitrary code execution into consumers on require.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

2.21.1

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

f3d9de53c9b5916edf45f9055ecdb2fbdd0752cfe7779f37c7d294a16788faf8

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 hardhat-cap (version 2.21.1). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging hardhat-cap across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
hardhat-cap is a typosquat — you almost certainly intended a legitimately-named package. Remove hardhat-cap, 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 hardhat-cap 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 hardhat-cap 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. hardhat-cap on npm has been identified as a malicious package (version 2.21.1 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-017106

References

npmjs.com

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks hardhat-cap-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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