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OpenAdvisories
Malicious MAL-2026-16280 GHSA-v486-jrrq-rhwx

zero-baileys

npm package · versions 2.7.0, 3.2.0, 3.3.0, 3.3.5, 3.5.0, 2.5.5, 2.6.0, 3.6.0, 3.4.6

Reported Sep 18, 2026 · Updated Oct 29, 2026

If this package is installed

Remove it, treat the machine (or CI runner) as compromised, and rotate every secret, token and key it could access — from a different, clean machine.

Details

Source: amazon-inspector (6f7a8aa73b2a3a5a61a45cc6f0ebeff58bfb23f8589895065fa30849421f4471)
zero-baileys is a fork of the Baileys WhatsApp Web library. Static keyword co-occurrence fired on lib/Utils/messages-media.js where require('child_process'), https.request, hostname, and POST all appear in the same file. In Baileys and its forks, messages-media.js handles media encryption/decryption and HTTP(S) uploads/downloads to WhatsApp's own media endpoints; child_process is used for optional ffmpeg/imagemagick invocation for media conversion. The keyword pattern is consistent with that documented functionality rather than with exfiltration: no specific installer-side data read (env, ~/.aws, ~/.ssh, ~/.npmrc, browser stores) is identified being sent to a non-first-party destination, and no install-time lifecycle hook or top-level side effect is present. No hardcoded attacker C2, no obfuscated destination, no credential-database or wallet enumeration, and no persistence artifact is observed. As a Baileys fork the package does carry the category-level concerns of that ecosystem (some forks have added covert side-effects such as auto-follow of author channels using the caller's session), but nothing of that shape is corroborated here.

Source: ghsa-malware (e18ff0786d183c3327cf8291eac1d72b1fa8379e834e367c2341da1e87ab9e32)
Any computer that has this package installed or running should be considered fully compromised. All secrets and keys stored on that computer should be rotated immediately from a different computer. The package should be removed, but as full control of the computer may have been given to an outside entity, there is no guarantee that removing the package will remove all malicious software resulting from installing it.