Which versions of rimraf-utils are malicious?

The following npm versions of rimraf-utils are flagged malicious: 1.0.4, 1.0.5, 2.0.0. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate rimraf-utils if I installed it?

rimraf-utils 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 rimraf-utils — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If rimraf-utils 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 rimraf-utils part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — rimraf-utils is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-002678, IN-MAL-2026-002679, IN-MAL-2026-002698 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 rimraf-utils 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 rimraf-utils (3 malicious versions). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging rimraf-utils across your stack and pipelines.

Malicious package

rimraf-utilsnpm

Malicious code in rimraf-utils (npm) Remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

MAL-2026-3772

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall rimraf-utils

What this malware does

[email protected] impersonates the widely-installed rimraf package (index.js is a dummy stub that internally identifies itself as 'lodash-js — Just a dummy module. The real payload is in postinstall.js'). On npm install, scripts.postinstall runs postinstall.js, which harvests installer-side secrets and ships them to a hardcoded bare-IP C2 over plaintext HTTP at http://149.28.127.35:8888 (overridable via process.env.C2_URL).

Specific behavior in postinstall.js:

Reads ~/.npmrc (npm auth tokens), ~/.env (API keys, DB URLs, cloud credentials, payment keys, EVM private keys, webhooks), and ~/.git-credentials.
Collects os.hostname() and os.userInfo() for host identification.
Enumerates 71 hardcoded Chrome/Brave/Edge/Firefox crypto-wallet extension IDs (MetaMask, Phantom, Coinbase, Trust, Exodus, Ledger Live, Trezor, Solflare, etc.) under the browsers' profile directories and reads each wallet's LevelDB .log files, regex-extracting vault/seed/mnemonic/privateKey/encrypted/password fields.
Recursively walks ~/Documents, ~/Desktop, ~/Downloads, ~/OneDrive, ~/Dropbox, ~/Google Drive, and backup/keys/wallet/crypto subtrees searching for seed-phrase and private-key patterns.
POSTs the aggregated JSON payload to the C2 via http.request(...).

This package matches multiple unambiguous attack fingerprints simultaneously: hardcoded bare-IP plaintext-HTTP C2 invoked from a lifecycle hook; browser crypto-wallet extension-ID enumeration; seed-phrase/mnemonic home-directory scanner; and installer-secret regex extraction from ~/.npmrc/~/.env/~/.git-credentials. The name is a typosquat of rimraf used as the delivery vector for the payload.

Malicious versions

3 flagged

1.0.41.0.52.0.0

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

0514899c58dd41152ee9aeb101db1eec4a229ea907aa96f6bf9606b7a75cfe83

8947f86d49a41e3f5b03eed92ee6a87e0e6438941606c25cac17c94da8ca9c08

a59d88d733415216903578b3c3806d76405a23a7cca56ee355eb6725e4e930d4

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer

Find it
Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for rimraf-utils (3 malicious versions). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging rimraf-utils across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
rimraf-utils 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 rimraf-utils 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 rimraf-utils 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. rimraf-utils on npm has been identified as a malicious package (versions 1.0.4, 1.0.5, 2.0.0 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-002678IN-MAL-2026-002679IN-MAL-2026-002698

References

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks rimraf-utils-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