Malicious Code Injection in recent_dinosaur-smiletea Package
Summary
MAL-2025-107788: Malicious code in recent_dinosaur-smiletea (npm). Affected versions are not published. No fix is published. How to fix ↓
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Background
The recent_dinosaur-smiletea package is part of the npm ecosystem and is associated with the tea.xyz token reward campaign. This package is designed to facilitate the distribution of token rewards by generating and publishing derivative packages. However, it has been identified as containing malicious code that compromises its integrity and the security of the npm registry.
Vulnerability Detail
The vulnerability in the recent_dinosaur-smiletea package originates from its design to automatically generate and publish derivative packages with randomized names. This malicious behavior includes modifying the package.json file to remove private flags, changing version numbers, and continuously republishing variants to pollute the npm registry. The ramifications of this vulnerability include potential abuse of developer reputation scores and the introduction of insecure packages into the ecosystem, which can lead to further exploitation.
How To Fix
This package is malicious. Remove it and rotate any credentials it could have accessed.
npm uninstall recent_dinosaur-smileteaIf it arrived as a transitive dependency, remove the package that pulled it in, then reinstall.
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Workaround
Currently, there are no specific workarounds to mitigate the effects of this vulnerability other than removing the affected package from your project.
Conclusion
The recent_dinosaur-smiletea package has been identified as containing malicious code that poses a significant risk to developers and the npm ecosystem. It is crucial to remove this package from your projects and monitor for any updates or patches. Utilizing tools like Vulert can help maintain the security of your applications.
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FAQ
The recent_dinosaur-smiletea package is part of a campaign that aims to reward developers with tokens by flooding the npm registry with derivative packages.
This vulnerability can compromise the integrity of your project by introducing malicious code and insecure packages, potentially leading to security breaches.
If you have installed the recent_dinosaur-smiletea package, you should uninstall it immediately using the command: npm uninstall recent_dinosaur-smiletea.
Yes, you can use Vulert, which monitors and alerts for open-source vulnerabilities in real-time using just your package-lock.json file. You can check if your application is affected by this vulnerability using the Vulert playground.
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