ratelimitsucksnpm
ratelimitsucks is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-6135) that typosquats a legitimate package to trick installs (malicious versions 1.1.2, 1.1.7, 1.7.7…). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in ratelimitsucks (npm)
What this malware does
Package is not a library. main points at sw.js, a browser Service Worker that uses importScripts, self.addEventListener('fetch'|'install'|'activate'), and self.clients.claim() — all undefined in Node, so require('ratelimitsucks') throws on the first line. There are no install lifecycle hooks (scripts only declares test), so npm install of this package does not auto-execute any code on the installer's machine. The shipped contents are a school-filter-bypass web proxy (12 heavily obfuscated assets/*.js files with hex-mangled identifiers, a Service Worker that rewrites HTML responses and intercepts navigation), an index.html cover page ("Riverbend Tutoring") that loads a third-party script from cdn.21baseballacademy.com and opens a popunder to abdct.com, and an auto-publish.sh script that loops i=1..10, rewrites package.json.name to ratelimitsucks, ratelimitsucks1,..., ratelimitsucks9, and runs npm publish for each — the author's own mass-publication pipeline shipped inside the tarball. Direct harm to a developer who installs this package is effectively nil (no hooks, no require-safe entry point). The harms are (a) abuse of the npm registry as a CDN for an unrelated proxy site, (b) demonstrated typosquat-name-squatting intent across 10 sibling names, and (c) a popunder ad redirect served from the cover page. Routing to human review for unpublish/registry-abuse handling rather than blocking as an installer-side supply-chain attack.
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
Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for ratelimitsucks (4 malicious versions). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging ratelimitsucks across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
ratelimitsucks is a typosquat — you almost certainly intended a legitimately-named package. Remove ratelimitsucks, 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 ratelimitsucks 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 ratelimitsucks 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
Campaign
References
Credits
- Amazon Inspector · finder
- ReversingLabs · finder
Detect & block this
O3 blocks ratelimitsucks-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.