--- title: StegaBin: 26 Malicious npm Packages Use Pastebin... description: Socket's threat research team uncovered 26 malicious npm packages linked to North Korea's FAMOUS CHOLLIMA (Lazarus Group) Contagious Interview campaign. Dubbed... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/stegabin-26-malicious-npm-packages-use-pastebin-steganograp--flnrarbz6 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: StegaBin: 26 Malicious npm Packages Use Pastebin Steganograp... | daily.dev og:description: Socket's threat research team uncovered 26 malicious npm packages linked to North Korea's FAMOUS CHOLLIMA (Lazarus Group) Contagious Interview campaign. Dubbed... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/stegabin-26-malicious-npm-packages-use-pastebin-steganograp--flnrarbz6 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/FlnRaRBz6.png og:image:alt: StegaBin: 26 Malicious npm Packages Use Pastebin Steganograp... og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # StegaBin: 26 Malicious npm Packages Use Pastebin Steganograp... **[Socket](https://daily.dev/sources/socketdev)** · 15 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Socket's threat research team uncovered 26 malicious npm packages linked to North Korea's FAMOUS CHOLLIMA (Lazarus Group) Contagious Interview campaign. Dubbed 'StegaBin,' the packages use character-level steganography hidden inside Pastebin essays to conceal C2 infrastructure across 31 Vercel deployments. The infection chain is multi-stage: a typosquatted package triggers an install script, which decodes hidden C2 URLs, fetches platform-specific shell payloads, and ultimately installs a RAT plus a 9-module infostealer toolkit. The modules target VSCode configs (whitespace-hidden persistence), SSH keys, Git credentials, browser credential stores, cryptocurrency wallet extensions (86 hardcoded IDs), clipboard/keylogging, TruffleHog secret scanning, and broad filesystem sweeps for sensitive files. The presence of Hardhat as a dependency confirms Web3 and blockchain developers as primary targets. All 26 packages were detected within six minutes of publication by Socket's AI-powered system. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#malware](https://daily.dev/tags/malware), [#npm](https://daily.dev/tags/npm) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/stegabin-26-malicious-npm-packages-use-pastebin-steganograp--flnrarbz6) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"StegaBin: 26 Malicious npm Packages Use Pastebin Steganograp...","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/stegabin-26-malicious-npm-packages-use-pastebin-steganograp--flnrarbz6","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/stegabin-26-malicious-npm-packages-use-pastebin-steganograp--flnrarbz6"},"datePublished":"2026-02-27T20:17:54.635Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T20:46:22.807Z","description":"Socket's threat research team uncovered 26 malicious npm packages linked to North Korea's FAMOUS CHOLLIMA (Lazarus Group) Contagious Interview campaign. 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