Malicious Code Injection in tea-oss-tean: A Threat to npm Packages
Summary
MAL-2025-166697: Malicious code in tea-oss-tean (npm). Affected versions are not published. No fix is published. How to fix ↓
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Background
The 'tea-oss-tean' package is part of the tea.xyz token reward campaign, which has been known to flood the npm ecosystem with malicious packages. These packages are designed to manipulate developer reputation scores through the automatic generation and publication of derivative packages. The malicious nature of this package lies in its ability to alter package metadata and republish variants, thereby polluting the npm registry.
Vulnerability Detail
The vulnerability in 'tea-oss-tean' originates from its inclusion in a campaign that utilizes autopublish scripts to generate and publish numerous derivative packages with randomized names. This behavior not only inflates developer reputation scores but also modifies the package.json file by removing private flags and changing version numbers. The continuous republishing of these variants can lead to a polluted npm registry, making it difficult for developers to find legitimate packages and potentially introducing security risks into their applications.
How To Fix
This package is malicious. Remove it and rotate any credentials it could have accessed.
npm uninstall tea-oss-teanIf it arrived as a transitive dependency, remove the package that pulled it in, then reinstall.
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Workaround
As a temporary measure, you can avoid using the 'tea-oss-tean' package and monitor your project for any dependencies that may inadvertently include it. Additionally, consider using tools like Vulert to monitor your package-lock.json for vulnerabilities. You can check if your application is affected by this vulnerability using the Vulert playground at https://vulert.com/scanner without any signup.
Conclusion
The 'tea-oss-tean' package poses a significant threat to the npm ecosystem due to its malicious behavior of modifying package metadata and republishing variants. It is crucial for developers to remove this package and monitor their dependencies for vulnerabilities to maintain the integrity and security of their applications.
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FAQ
The 'tea-oss-tean' package is part of a campaign that aims to manipulate npm's reputation system by flooding it with malicious packages.
The vulnerability can lead to the introduction of malicious code into your application, making it susceptible to security risks and instability.
You should remove the 'tea-oss-tean' package from your project and monitor for any dependencies that may include it.
Yes, you can use Vulert to monitor your package-lock.json for vulnerabilities in real-time.
Yes, you can use the Vulert playground at Vulert Scanner to check if your application is affected by this vulnerability without any signup.
