What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-48161: react18-use was vulnerable to malicious code execution via compromised commits
- Severity: critical (CVSS 9.3 v4.0)
- Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
- EPSS: 0.7% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: none known
- Published: 2026-08-10 · updated 2026-10-23
- Weakness: CWE-506
Description
react18-use is a React 19 use hook shim. Between 2026-05-19 01:07:01 and 2026-05-19 15:20:43, the default branch contained malicious commits 7b79148d1495a2505f9277da295a98cf176f4496 through 7b79148d1495a2505f9277da295a98cf176f4496 that executed remote attacker-controlled code on developer machines during `npm install`. The commits were removed by force-push, but local clones, forks, and direct-SHA URLs may still contain them, and `npm install` against an affected checkout will still execute the code today. The package was not published to npm. `src/install.js` was added and wired into the `postinstall` script. It fetched a JavaScript payload from an attacker-controlled HTTPS endpoint (configurable via an environment variable), disabled TLS verification, and evaluated the response as code with `require` available. Execution was deliberately skipped on CI and cloud/serverless environments, targeting developer workstations. The second-stage payload was attacker-hosted and cannot be reconstructed. Assume full compromise of anything reachable from a Node process with the user's permissions. Those who ran `npm install` against an affected checkout on a developer machine on or after 2026-05-19 01:07:01 should treat the machine as compromised, rotate every credential the machine could reach, audit account activity since 2026-05-19 01:07:01, and clean local clones.
Affected products
- dai-shi react18-use: from 7b79148d1495a2505f9277da295a98cf176f4496, <= 7b79148d1495a2505f9277da295a98cf176f4496
References
Get alerted when CVE-2026-48161 or the next vulnerability affects your stack