MAL-2026-17233

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Import Source
https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/main/osv/malicious/npm/hardhat-lock/MAL-2026-17233.json
JSON Data
https://api.osv.dev/v1/vulns/MAL-2026-17233
Published
2026-09-28T22:06:53Z
Modified
2026-09-28T22:30:06Z
Summary
Malicious code in hardhat-lock (npm)
Details

-= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=-

Source: amazon-inspector (035a099bd6a60e41f1e1cbc1b70f27fecb9bef3f12d54e016d6991b581fc880f)

The npm package hardhat-lock@2.21.0 publishes itself as a logger/middleware but its identity and contents are inconsistent with that purpose: README badges, LICENSE, index.d.ts and docs/* are copied from the unrelated pino project (maintained by pinojs), while the package name squats the Ethereum-tooling keyword 'hardhat'. index.js unconditionally executes require('./lib/config') at module load, and lib/config.js is a ~4MB obfuscator.io-style single-line file (rotated string array of 23,981 entries, hex-escaped tokens, numeric wrapper decoders mt/mw/M0..M5/K/R/s/G, control-flow flattening, and 40,131 inline decoder replacements confirmed by webcrack) whose top-level IIFE runs the moment any downstream code does require('hardhat-lock'). The combination — impersonation of an established package under a different scope-adjacent name, opaque multi-megabyte obfuscated blob with no plausible logging use, and guaranteed import-time execution — is a supply-chain payload carrier: installing and loading the package places attacker-controlled code inside the consumer's Node.js process with unrestricted access to environment variables, filesystem, and network.

Database specific 
{
    "malicious-packages-origins":  [
        {
            "id":  "IN-MAL-2026-020620",
            "import_time":  "2026-09-28T22:18:23.506719528Z",
            "modified_time":  "2026-09-28T22:06:53Z",
            "sha256":  "035a099bd6a60e41f1e1cbc1b70f27fecb9bef3f12d54e016d6991b581fc880f",
            "source":  "amazon-inspector",
            "versions":  [
                "2.21.0"
            ]
        }
    ]
}
References
Credits

Affected packages

npm / hardhat-lock

Package

Name
hardhat-lock
View open source insights on deps.dev
Purl
pkg:npm/hardhat-lock

Affected ranges

Affected versions

2.*
2.21.0

Database specific

cwes 
[
    {
        "cweId":  "CWE-506",
        "description":  "The product contains code that appears to be malicious in nature.",
        "name":  "Embedded Malicious Code"
    }
]
indicators 
{
    "evidence_files":  [
        {
            "path":  "lib/config.js",
            "sha256":  "3a7f87ca7f738984bd7918a88da35a9898a491fd969e4ff43e619b25f2394abb",
            "tlsh":  "f0168345b287bc2742cf2663be0139ec7467656284c8a18bcb56bd1d35bc80bd9e6fd0"
        },
        {
            "path":  "package.json",
            "sha256":  "41f964a7bcd40ce7bba7db5637bf1b8042f369f6f593d5fffac7444da14025d7",
            "tlsh":  "58017620deb88e2301ed25524c2a0643b6618c175528fc2932dba12c4f9d5ff11bf22d"
        }
    ],
    "package_integrity":  [
        {
            "filename":  "hardhat-lock-2.21.0.tgz",
            "hashes":  {
                "sha1":  "b036b5f9842b331a904a85fbe25837250f4b98b7",
                "sha512_sri":  "sha512-ttehUm7EVQpEfmbHPky/yKcqxlZCqW754j8GJA4b8cTesVq+1qkaUy0i5ESIJGhs/vk9cchNrfWad9hcLykTDg=="
            }
        }
    ]
}
source 
"https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/main/osv/malicious/npm/hardhat-lock/MAL-2026-17233.json"