Which versions of self-certificate are malicious?

The following npm versions of self-certificate are flagged malicious: 1.0.0, 1.1.0. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate self-certificate if I installed it?

self-certificate establishes remote access, so treat any host that installed it as fully compromised. Isolate the machine, remove the package, rotate all credentials it could reach, and rebuild from a trusted image rather than cleaning in place — a backdoor may have planted additional persistence.

I already installed self-certificate — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If self-certificate 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 self-certificate part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — self-certificate is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-005730, IN-MAL-2026-007653 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 self-certificate across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for self-certificate (2 malicious versions).

Malicious package

self-certificatenpm

Advisory published Jun 11, 2026Updated Jun 26, 2026

self-certificate is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-5644) that opens a backdoor for remote access (malicious versions 1.0.0, 1.1.0). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in self-certificate (npm)

MAL-2026-5644

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall self-certificate

What this malware does

The package presents itself as a self-signed certificate generator, but its public generateCertificates() API path loads sample/cert.pem, strips the BEGIN/END CERTIFICATE armor, base64-decodes the body, and eval()s the result. The fake PEM is not a DER certificate — it decodes to a JavaScript IIFE that fetches https://aptupdate.org/settings/privacy.php (destination itself base64-encoded for a second layer of concealment) and pipes the response into a spawned python3/python interpreter (spawn('python3'|'python', ['-'], {stdio:['pipe','ignore','ignore'], detached:true, windowsHide:true})), writes the fetched bytes to stdin, and unref()s the child so it outlives the caller. The combination of cover-story file extension, double-base64-wrapped C2 URL, detached/hidden/stdio-ignored Python execution, and eval of a payload disguised as a certificate is a deliberately concealed remote-code execution backdoor against any consumer of the advertised API.

Malicious versions

2 flagged

1.0.01.1.0

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

4a2141f4facbd3abc437287c86971f1b3bb6795fad75990624f735b72139167d

ab587fcd5a0b45e17454fc742007b8b597a0aec49b443d8a5a087ba910ea4a40

Detection & response playbook

Backdoor / remote access

Find it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for self-certificate (2 malicious versions).
If you installed it — respond
self-certificate establishes remote access, so treat any host that installed it as fully compromised. Isolate the machine, remove the package, rotate all credentials it could reach, and rebuild from a trusted image rather than cleaning in place — a backdoor may have planted additional persistence.
Did it already run?
If self-certificate 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. self-certificate on npm has been identified as a malicious package (versions 1.0.0, 1.1.0 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-005730IN-MAL-2026-007653

References

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks self-certificate-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the C2 callback and severs the channel.

Malware detection Runtime egress monitoring

Explore

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