MAL-2026-18710
Vulnerability from ossf_malicious_packages – Updated: 2026-10-16 00:00 – Source website| Ecosystem | Package | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| npm |
kurobails
|
Affected: All versions (semver)
|
kurobails is a fork of the Baileys WhatsApp Web library that silently subscribes the installer's own authenticated WhatsApp account to an author-chosen WhatsApp Channel. Part of the campaign OX Security documented as "PhantomSub" (2026-09-28): https://www.ox.security/blog/phantomsub-malicious-npm-campaign-secretly-adds-users-to-whatsapp-spam-channels/ . Static read of the published 2.0.3 tarball on 2026-10-16 (not executed) found four channel JIDs (120363409616710069, 120363424058761303, 120363424944937940, 120363429340573125, @newsletter) decoded at runtime from base64 or char-code arrays, together with the newsletter FOLLOW query wired to run automatically after the socket connects, with errors suppressed. Same family as the withdrawn MAL-2026-4519 (chromestaff-baileys 1.1.3). Live on npm with no OSV record as of 2026-10-16. (Corrected 2026-10-16: an earlier version of this entry cited 120363421563597486, which in this package only labels forwarded messages.)
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://www.ox.security/blog/phantomsub-malicious… | REPORT |
| https://www.npmjs.com/package/kurobails | PACKAGE |
{
"affected": [
{
"package": {
"ecosystem": "npm",
"name": "kurobails"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
}
],
"type": "SEMVER"
}
]
}
],
"credits": [
{
"contact": [
"https://www.ox.security/blog/phantomsub-malicious-npm-campaign-secretly-adds-users-to-whatsapp-spam-channels/"
],
"name": "OX Security",
"type": "FINDER"
},
{
"contact": [
"mailto:patrick@dugganusa.com"
],
"name": "Patrick Duggan, DugganUSA",
"type": "REPORTER"
}
],
"details": "kurobails is a fork of the Baileys WhatsApp Web library that silently subscribes the installer\u0027s own authenticated WhatsApp account to an author-chosen WhatsApp Channel. Part of the campaign OX Security documented as \"PhantomSub\" (2026-09-28): https://www.ox.security/blog/phantomsub-malicious-npm-campaign-secretly-adds-users-to-whatsapp-spam-channels/ . Static read of the published 2.0.3 tarball on 2026-10-16 (not executed) found four channel JIDs (120363409616710069, 120363424058761303, 120363424944937940, 120363429340573125, @newsletter) decoded at runtime from base64 or char-code arrays, together with the newsletter FOLLOW query wired to run automatically after the socket connects, with errors suppressed. Same family as the withdrawn MAL-2026-4519 (chromestaff-baileys 1.1.3). Live on npm with no OSV record as of 2026-10-16. (Corrected 2026-10-16: an earlier version of this entry cited 120363421563597486, which in this package only labels forwarded messages.)",
"id": "MAL-2026-18710",
"modified": "2026-10-16T00:00:00Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "REPORT",
"url": "https://www.ox.security/blog/phantomsub-malicious-npm-campaign-secretly-adds-users-to-whatsapp-spam-channels/"
},
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://www.npmjs.com/package/kurobails"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.7.4",
"summary": "Malicious code in kurobails (npm)"
}
Drag nodes to arrange them. Double-click a related vulnerability to open it, or a source to visit its link. The Physics button on the left tunes the layout and the simulation; the legend at the bottom left hides or shows nodes by kind and by sighting type.
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.
Vulnerability timeline
Sightings and recorded dates, grouped by day · UTC
How durations are calculated
Following the VTEM framework (Black Hat USA 2015), time to patch starts when the vendor or a coordinator was informed, total time to patch at discovery, and disclosure to patch at public disclosure; vendor response time runs from the report to its acknowledgement. Time to exploit and time unpatched start at the earliest discovery or report, falling back to public disclosure. Unpatched time ends at the first recorded patch, or the calculation time when no patch is recorded. Exploitation to patch shows the interval between those two events; a published proof of concept is a public exploit, not exploitation.
Each result shows its source dates. A negative interval means the end event came first; when date-only inputs leave the order open, the result says so. Date-only inputs are approximate. The earliest evidence wins: KEV report dates and sightings are labelled as such. Records describing another vulnerability are listed but never calculated from, and a PoC alone does not establish exploitation. Missing patch evidence does not prove that no patch exists. Filters below change the event list only.
Loading timeline…
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.