MAL-2026-10185 Malicious code in authvaultx (npm)

On require() of authvaultx (main: auth.js, which loads lib/writer.js), top-level code attempts to load the separately published npm package 'auth-next-gen'; if not present, it silently shells out to npm install auth-next-gen --loglevel silent and then immediately require()s ../../auth-next-gen/index.js, executing whatever that external package ships. The fetch destination is a separate registry package controlled by the same author space, so the payload can be swapped without republishing authvaultx. lib/writer.js also assembles its user-facing fallback error string via repeated String.fromCharCode() concatenation, obscuring intent from casual review and string scanners. The published package masquerades as a logger (pino banner/logo PNGs, pino-cloned docs/ directory, logger/stream/json keywords) while the README advertises authentication functionality and the actual on-require behavior is a second-stage loader — none of the advertised purposes (logger or auth module) requires fetching and executing another npm package at load time.

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.