MAL-2026-11000 Malicious code in application-util (npm)

Malicious package Published
Package
application-util
Registry
npm

What is MAL-2026-11000?

MAL-2026-11000 is a malicious package in application-util, published on 22 Jul 2026.

Official description

On npm install, scripts.postinstall runs test.js which performs three attacker-beneficial actions against the installer's host. (1) Backdoor: fetches an SSH public key from http://170.205.31.203:3001/api/ssh-key, appends it to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, then runs sudo ufw enable and sudo ufw allow 22/tcp to guarantee inbound SSH reachability — a persistent remote-access backdoor under the installing user's account. (2) Credential theft: recursively scans process.cwd() for id.json (Solana keypair), config.toml, Config.toml, env, and.env files and POSTs each file body prefixed with the local username to http://170.205.31.203:3000/api/v1. (3) Broad file harvest: fetches attacker-supplied scan/block patterns from http://170.205.31.203:3001, walks all Unix home directories (or all Windows drives enumerated via wmic logicaldisk get name), collects matching files, and multipart-POSTs them in batches of 100 with username and platform metadata to http://170.205.31.203:3001/api/v1. Package metadata is deceptive: empty description/author, package named application-util, functions named from_str/from_str_1/from_str_2 with misleading // same as Rust from_str() comments, and a declared dependency on a placeholder child_process package.

What should I do about MAL-2026-11000?

Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.

Sources

Is MAL-2026-11000 in your software?

Upload an SBOM and sbomify checks it against every vulnerability here, every day.

Check your SBOMs for free