This weekly list covers the ten most significant malicious or compromised packages recently observed in public registries.
1. yuinpm (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/yuinpm
- Severity: high
- Affected versions: 0.0.1-security
- Downloads: 7767
- First seen: 23 July 2026 at 23:21 UTC
Malicious package detected.
2. @apexfdn/apex (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@apexfdn/apex
- Severity: low
- Affected versions: 1.0.28
- Downloads: 1821
- First seen: 22 July 2026 at 08:05 UTC
The install.cjs script follows a well-known legitimate pattern — downloading a platform-specific binary from GitHub releases on postinstall — consistent with tools like esbuild or puppeteer. The use of process.platform is purely for binary selection, not exfiltration; the IOC classifier mislabeled the download URL as 'exfil.' The 'chalk is malicious' dependency finding is almost certainly a false positive — chalk is one of the most widely used npm packages in the ecosystem. The primary residual risk is that the downloaded pre-built binaries (apex-linux-x64, apex-darwin-arm64, etc.) cannot be audited from this evidence alone, and the tool self-describes as a coding agent with bash execution capability backed by external services (hindsight.vectorize.io, omp.sh) whose behavior is opaque without examining apex.cjs more deeply.
3. upjsma (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/upjsma
- Severity: high
- Affected versions: 0.0.1-security
- Downloads: 1501
- First seen: 21 July 2026 at 08:06 UTC
Malicious package detected.
4. rollup-plugin-polyfill-helper (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/rollup-plugin-polyfill-helper
- Severity: critical
- Affected versions: all
- Downloads: 1096
- First seen: 20 July 2026 at 07:46 UTC
Malicious package detected. Behaviors: data exfiltration, code execution.
5. chai-leaf (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/chai-leaf
- Severity: high
- Affected versions: all
- Downloads: 939
- First seen: 21 July 2026 at 09:55 UTC
Malicious package detected. Behaviors: code execution, obfuscated code.
6. nolby (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/nolby
- Severity: critical
- Affected versions: all
- Downloads: 789
- First seen: 22 July 2026 at 08:03 UTC
The package is a supply-chain attack targeting developers running WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). The _sync function at the bottom of index.mjs — deliberately separated from the legitimate calendar-math library code above it — detects a WSL environment via process.platform === 'linux' and the presence of /mnt/c, enumerates Windows user profiles by scanning for NTUSER.DAT, then copies a bundled file cache.dat from the package directory into the Windows Startup folder (AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Start Menu/Programs/Startup) renamed as vite-native-helper.exe. This is a textbook persistence dropper: cache.dat is the malicious payload, the startup folder write guarantees execution on every Windows login, and the disguise name (vite-native-helper.exe) borrows legitimacy from the Vite build tool. The NODE_ENV === 'production' guard ensures the payload only fires on developer machines. The surrounding library code is plausible enough to avoid immediate suspicion.
7. cors-update (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/cors-update
- Severity: low
- Affected versions: all
- Downloads: 752
- First seen: 24 July 2026 at 07:53 UTC
Suspicious package detected.
8. chai-as-reddit (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/chai-as-reddit
- Severity: high
- Affected versions: all
- Downloads: 726
- First seen: 21 July 2026 at 09:23 UTC
Malicious package detected. Behaviors: code execution, obfuscated code.
9. veskra (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/veskra
- Severity: high
- Affected versions: all
- Downloads: 726
- First seen: 22 July 2026 at 08:03 UTC
The package installs the malicious "nolby" package.
10. tailwindcss-form-components (npm)
- Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/tailwindcss-form-components
- Severity: critical
- Affected versions: all
- Downloads: 706
- First seen: 20 July 2026 at 08:37 UTC
Malicious package detected. Behaviors: code execution.
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Credits for the core data goes to https://opensourcemalware.com