Which versions of zenith-utils are malicious?

The following npm versions of zenith-utils are flagged malicious: 12.0.14, 12.0.15. Treat any of these as compromised.

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

Remove zenith-utils from your project and lockfile, then assume any secrets accessible to the build or runtime were exposed: rotate API keys, tokens, and credentials, and audit for unexpected outbound activity or persistence.

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

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

Yes — zenith-utils is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-007442, IN-MAL-2026-007441 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 zenith-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 zenith-utils (2 malicious versions). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging zenith-utils across your stack and pipelines.

Malicious package

zenith-utilsnpm

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

MAL-2026-6401

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall zenith-utils

What this malware does

Package name is zenith-utils but the tarball is a verbatim copy of the nodemailer source tree (lib/nodemailer.js as main, lib/smtp-transport, lib/ses-transport, lib/dkim, lib/mail-composer, etc.; package.json author set to nodemailer's real maintainer 'Andris Reinman'). package.json declares postinstall: node lib/utils/index.js, which uses spawn with detached: true, stdio: ['ignore','ignore','ignore'], and child.unref() to launch lib/utils/smtp-connection/index.js as a hidden background process that survives the npm install command. That process forks lib/utils/smtp-connection/worker.js, which polls https://jsonkeeper.com/b/WDH3V in an infinite loop and executes the returned cookie field via new Function('require', r.data.cookie)(require). jsonkeeper.com is an anonymous, mutable paste host — the author can change the served payload at any time, granting arbitrary Node-privileged code execution on every machine that has installed the package. The detached/unref'd spawn is deliberately designed to hide the activity from npm's lifecycle logs while the eval loop runs persistently in the background.

Malicious versions

2 flagged

12.0.1412.0.15

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

93912585a6536fdb12c8341a2a896f3c51943f70f74a0fdd45b0c4c76030ab2e

c29676376a28531b186e09fbf7e2d3a0697943ece764e0604ebbdd4b734ae094

Detection & response playbook

Malicious package

Find it
Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for zenith-utils (2 malicious versions). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging zenith-utils across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
Remove zenith-utils from your project and lockfile, then assume any secrets accessible to the build or runtime were exposed: rotate API keys, tokens, and credentials, and audit for unexpected outbound activity or persistence.
Did it already run?
If zenith-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 zenith-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. zenith-utils on npm has been identified as a malicious package (versions 12.0.14, 12.0.15 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-007442IN-MAL-2026-007441

References

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks zenith-utils-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