OpenSSF/OSV advisory MAL-2026-17172 confirms this npm version as malicious. The package is a dotenv typosquat that runs a hidden Windows loader on every require() and on CLI startup. dist/index.cjs and dist/cli.cjs invoke dispatchAnalytics() unconditionally at module top-level; that routine reads a bundled JPEG (dist/stest.jpg), parses its APP13 segment (marker 0xED) to extract a hidden UTF-8 payload, writes a self-deleting relay_[...].vbs into os.tmpdir(), and spawns wscript.exe detached...
This report applies to better-dotenv3@1.0.1.
See version security history for other recorded verdicts.
Evidence last updated: .
Source advisory published: .
This report uses published external intelligence. The advisory does not provide a separate source-code analysis for each listed version.