MAL-2026-17234
Vulnerability from ossf_malicious_packages
-= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=-
Source: amazon-inspector (37cd33c0908189c0085fba153be1c42776411968aa5ad652dd7ffdef88b318bc)
hardhat-zet@2.0.1 is published under a name that impersonates the Hardhat Ethereum tooling ecosystem, but its README, type definitions and docs/ tree are copied verbatim from the unrelated pino logger project (badges and links point at npmjs.com/package/pino and github.com/pinojs/pino). The exported middleware in index.js is a no-op Express middleware and matches neither the hardhat-zet name nor the pino README. The package's declared main (index.js) top-level-requires./lib/config, which is not a configuration file but a 4,498,609-byte obfuscator.io-style bundle: a 26,113-entry rotated string array behind two runtime decoders (functions v and F), hex-encoded identifiers, and control-flow flattening. All strings and destination URLs are hidden behind the decoders, so this code runs automatically on any require('hardhat-zet') and its behavior is not observable without deobfuscation. Publisher metadata (author 'Robert King hello@jsonspack.com', bugs URL https://jsonspack.com/issues) ties to neither the Hardhat nor the pino identity. The combination — ecosystem-typosquat name targeting crypto/Hardhat developers, cover-story README lifted from an unrelated popular package, no-op public API, and a multi-megabyte obfuscated payload auto-executed on import — is the shape of a supply-chain stealer aimed at Ethereum developers.
- CWE-506 - The product contains code that appears to be malicious in nature.
{
"affected": [
{
"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": "6d06757f9ab4a23c5f09b416308cff0322ada95f0484ec4c76386cfb6898a17d",
"tlsh": "b32670ca1681f36397dd2713bf19a9e8e02e9ce19888f247d15e7d4d69ec11bc1a0de0"
},
{
"path": "README.md",
"sha256": "c06dbdc49dd2b00aa4a2e42b8096e2b00ade911b28e5f9c2ddc108fe64bd0cb8",
"tlsh": "0a41a56787e47fbe5b6301b2d1c275a9ff1fd31c3f6a60b9d99c812d13185a2813220a"
},
{
"path": "package.json",
"sha256": "1ce0376fd8b945eda3c1fb466d3acc39347cb6506f825365f8d3b7262bb923d5",
"tlsh": "ca017620deb88e2301ed29424c2a0643baa58c175528fc2933dba12c0f9d5fb41bf22d"
}
],
"package_integrity": [
{
"filename": "hardhat-zet-2.0.1.tgz",
"hashes": {
"sha1": "6742e955c2505a00854a0e3a2e5d1ed507b0bbb5",
"sha512_sri": "sha512-lSUUCgdQXRx28zGPhrJNpZ/N8vuLFdaIGTWaBcpBnaQeMM86BScDFJD3zdSqexHxkXsu+HIvloKWsMMIbPkIKA=="
}
}
]
}
},
"package": {
"ecosystem": "npm",
"name": "hardhat-zet"
},
"versions": [
"2.0.1"
]
}
],
"credits": [
{
"contact": [
"inspector-research@amazon.com"
],
"name": "Amazon Inspector",
"type": "FINDER"
}
],
"database_specific": {
"malicious-packages-origins": [
{
"id": "IN-MAL-2026-020621",
"import_time": "2026-09-28T22:18:23.581496614Z",
"modified_time": "2026-09-28T22:07:01Z",
"sha256": "37cd33c0908189c0085fba153be1c42776411968aa5ad652dd7ffdef88b318bc",
"source": "amazon-inspector",
"versions": [
"2.0.1"
]
}
]
},
"details": "\n---\n_-= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=-_\n\n## Source: amazon-inspector (37cd33c0908189c0085fba153be1c42776411968aa5ad652dd7ffdef88b318bc)\nhardhat-zet@2.0.1 is published under a name that impersonates the Hardhat Ethereum tooling ecosystem, but its README, type definitions and docs/ tree are copied verbatim from the unrelated `pino` logger project (badges and links point at npmjs.com/package/pino and github.com/pinojs/pino). The exported `middleware` in index.js is a no-op Express middleware and matches neither the `hardhat-zet` name nor the pino README. The package\u0027s declared main (index.js) top-level-requires./lib/config, which is not a configuration file but a 4,498,609-byte obfuscator.io-style bundle: a 26,113-entry rotated string array behind two runtime decoders (functions v and F), hex-encoded identifiers, and control-flow flattening. All strings and destination URLs are hidden behind the decoders, so this code runs automatically on any `require(\u0027hardhat-zet\u0027)` and its behavior is not observable without deobfuscation. Publisher metadata (author \u0027Robert King \u003chello@jsonspack.com\u003e\u0027, bugs URL https://jsonspack.com/issues) ties to neither the Hardhat nor the pino identity. The combination \u2014 ecosystem-typosquat name targeting crypto/Hardhat developers, cover-story README lifted from an unrelated popular package, no-op public API, and a multi-megabyte obfuscated payload auto-executed on import \u2014 is the shape of a supply-chain stealer aimed at Ethereum developers.\n",
"id": "MAL-2026-17234",
"modified": "2026-09-28T22:07:01Z",
"published": "2026-09-28T22:07:01Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://www.npmjs.com/package/hardhat-zet/v/2.0.1"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.7.4",
"summary": "Malicious code in hardhat-zet (npm)"
}
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
Related by attack behaviour
Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.