Researchers at OX Security have flagged 101 npm packages that silently subscribe developers to WhatsApp spam channels the moment they are installed. The campaign abuses the open-source Baileys library, an unofficial implementation of the WhatsApp API that developers use to build customer support bots, chat managers, and automation tools, to carry out the subscriptions without any visible prompt or warning.
The packages have collectively been downloaded roughly 490,000 times, with 116,000 of those downloads occurring in the last 30 days. The single most downloaded package, `ourin-baileys`, accounts for 130,589 installs on its own, nearly a quarter of the campaign's total reach. As of publication, the majority of the 101 packages remain live on npm. Sixteen had been removed, and seven of those were pulled before researchers could review the code to determine which variant of the malware they carried.
The campaign did not begin in 2026. The oldest package in OX Security's list, `alipclutch-baileys`, was first published in October 2025. Several others date to December 2025, meaning this operation has been running quietly on the registry for close to a year before receiving a formal write-up.
Three Ways to Hide the Same Payload
OX Security researchers Nir Zadok, Moshe Siman Tov Bustan, and Vitalii Chepurko identified three distinct variants of the malware, each handling the subscription routine differently.
The first variant, found in 19 packages, fetches channel IDs from GitHub at runtime. By hosting the target list externally, operators can swap out which accounts receive new followers without ever publishing a new package version to npm. One package, `@rixxcodex/baileys`, hides the GitHub URL inside media-download code using Base64 encoding so it is unlikely to catch the eye of anyone skimming the source.
The second variant, covering 60 packages, simply embeds the channel IDs in cleartext inside the source code. Two packages took additional steps to bury this, placing the subscription logic inside an upstream connection handler and inside a file named after the Signal cryptographic protocol, a location most developers would never think to inspect.
The third variant, found in 14 packages, encodes the hardcoded channel IDs using Base64. One package in this group, `neuralwhatsapp`, takes a slightly different approach: rather than storing a channel ID directly, it resolves its target from a hardcoded WhatsApp invite code at runtime.
The Follower Inflation Business
The goal is not data theft or ransomware deployment. The channels identified in this campaign are mostly small bot-seller and marketplace accounts, largely Indonesian, where follower counts function as social proof for selling bot scripts, premium APKs, social media boosting services, and in-game resources.
Among the specific channels researchers identified: Neural has 798 followers and markets game-currency sales through a platform called JualanRSS, which deals in in-game resources including food, ore, stone, timber, and gold. MONTE-BMG has 1,000 followers. CORTANA TECH has 1,300 and points visitors to a dedicated website. Fyxzpedia.ID-Utama, with 4,800 followers, sells WhatsApp and Telegram bot scripts and bot-building services outright. One Spanish-language channel called Redes Oficiales sits at 19,000 followers and is linked to a YouTube creator, pushing back against the assumption that this is a purely Indonesian operation.
The threat actors mute these channels on the victim's device after subscribing them, so the added follower count appears organic to outside observers. A channel with thousands of followers reads as trustworthy, and that manufactured trust is the product being sold to the operators running these marketplaces.
One channel, MONTE-BMG, illustrates how the monetisation funnel actually works. It posts what appears to be a screenshotted sales negotiation in Arabic, ending with a group invite link. That link leads to a brand-new channel with only 12 followers, whose own description contains yet another group invite. The inflated parent channel is only the entry point. The actual transaction gets moved progressively deeper into a private chain of groups where there is no public record.
Beyond follower inflation, the SafeDep research team noted earlier this year that some Baileys forks in this campaign also inject the package author's advertising URL into every image and video the bot sends, a second payload the follower-count headline tends to obscure.
One Coordinated Operation, Many Names
OX Security found that 32 channels are followed by more than one package across this campaign. The single most reused channel, identified by the ID `120363400911374213@newsletter`, is targeted by ten separate packages. One remote channel list hosted on GitHub feeds five different packages simultaneously, meaning the operator can retarget all five installations by editing a single file.
Operators routinely publish near-identical packages under slightly different
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