Malicious code in animated-css-kit (npm)
The package presents itself as a PostCSS plugin for animate.css, but its main export (src/plugin.js createPlugin) synchronously triggers src/side-effects.js, which is heavily obfuscated (obfuscator.io string-array with RC4 decoding, anti-debug via Function.prototype.toString inspection, console-method hijacking) while the rest of the src/*.js tree is plain unobfuscated PostCSS code. The obfuscated module fetches a remote JSON payload, base64-decodes its message field, and executes it via new Function('require', m)(require), handing the caller's require to attacker-supplied code with retry-up-to-10-times logic. This fires when a consumer imports the package and instantiates the exported plugin (the documented usage in a build pipeline), giving the attacker arbitrary code execution on the installer/build machine with full access to the surrounding Node.js environment. The clean plugin surface + targeted obfuscation of only the network-and-eval module + evocative name mimicking the animate.css ecosystem are consistent with a supply-chain attack using a cover-story package.
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.
MAL-2026-10432 is recorded against 1 package.
Published on 13 July 2026 and last revised on 4 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.
www.npmjs.com (Package)
github.com (Advisory)
www.npmjs.com (Package)
Details
Affected Packages
| Software | From version | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| animated-css-kit | — | — |
References
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