npm: 16 flagged adjective_animal_colour-<n> packages ship autopublish.js republisher
Severity: medium · Patch status: no-fix-needed · Since 2024-05-21
On 2026-11-04 GitHub's advisory database (sourced from OpenSSF) flagged 16 npm packages, each named <adjective<animal<colour-<n, as malicious (CWE-506). The advisories say each one ships an autopublish.js that runs npm publish --access public to republish the package. The 2026 OpenSSF records were published 2 Nov. The flagged versions were published to the registry on 2024-05-21 and have one version each. The same name pattern covers at least 1,306 packages on the npm registry, published by three accounts (elswary, naerdstore, chisez) in March to May 2024. Across the family, no version was published in 2025 or 2026 according to the registry search index, so no self-republication is visible on the registry. Downloads are low and steady: about 190-240 per flagged package in the month to 3 Nov, and about 253k across all 1,306 names. The 16 flagged packages declare no install-time scripts and depend on boilerplate or long-established packages. A publish step needs an npm token from the machine that runs the script, and no such run is visible. A 2025 OpenSSF/amazon-inspector record describes a similar autopublish family as part of the tea.xyz reward-farming campaign. The other roughly 1,290 same-pattern names are not verified as malicious. No fix exists for the flagged packages.
What to do
- Block the 16 flagged names and versions listed in affectedVersions in lockfiles, registry proxies and firewall allowlists
- Search lockfiles and dependency trees for the adjective_animal_colour-<n> pattern. Treat the roughly 1,290 unflagged names as suspicious until they are verified, not as benign
- Check whether any tree pulls in the flagged packages' dependencies (elswary, naerdstore, chisez2309), and whether any host ran autopublish.js or npm publish --access public
- If an npm token was present on a host that installed or ran any of these names, revoke and rotate it, and review that account's publish history
- Monitor the GHSA and OpenSSF malicious-packages feeds for new names in this family
Sources
All live incidents on Threat Watch
