MAL-2026-11792 Malicious code in @qlik/embed-web-components (npm)

npm/@qlik/embed-web-components is affected by the large-scale, self-propagating npm supply-chain worm of 2026-08-04 (the "Shai-Hulud: Here We Go Again" wave) — the same campaign that began with the compromise of the keyv and cacheable maintainer account. The listed version(s) were trojanized and republished by the worm after it reached an npm publish token belonging to a maintainer in this namespace; the payload enumerates every package a stolen token controls and republishes each with the same hook, so many packages under this scope were poisoned in the same short window. Every poisoned release adds a preinstall hook ("preinstall": "node setup.mjs") that runs on a bare npm install, before any project code. setup.mjs downloads a standalone Bun runtime and runs a byte-identical, heavily obfuscated ~728 KB second-stage credential stealer (shipped as Math_Symbol.js / math_init.js). It harvests GitHub, npm, AWS, GCP, Azure, HashiCorp Vault and Kubernetes credentials plus generic secrets and private keys (TruffleHog-style sweep), reads CI/CD secrets and identifies build runners, then republishes further packages the stolen token can reach. Rather than a fixed command-and-control host, it exfiltrates stolen findings to attacker-created GitHub repositories (descriptions reading "Shai-Hulud: Here We Go Again") and over DNS. Treat any environment that installed an affected version (with install scripts enabled) as compromised: rotate and revoke all reachable credentials (npm and GitHub tokens, cloud keys, Vault/Kubernetes secrets, and CI org/repo secrets). Part of the August 2026 npm worm that poisoned 400+ packages across many organizations.

Version 1.7.3 of this npm package contains a preinstall hook (node setup.mjs) that downloads the Bun runtime from GitHub releases and uses it to execute a co-shipped 727KB obfuscated file math_init.js at install time. setup.mjs itself is obfuscated with obfuscator.io-style identifier mangling (_0x488df8, _0x52943e, etc.) and string-lookup indirection. math_init.js is a single-line hex-array obfuscated bundle carrying a // @bun @bun-cjs header, a rotated string array (n7gIxM, rotation function WV8StW), and a charset decoder (hc1jfK9) — using Bun rather than Node so the payload executes outside the Node require-tree that ordinary scanners walk. Neither setup.mjs nor math_init.js is listed in package.json's files manifest (declared as ["dist", "CHANGELOG.md"]), and CHANGELOG.md has no entry for 1.7.3, consistent with a compromised-publish where the preinstall + payload were injected without updating the publish manifest. A web-components UI library has no legitimate need to fetch an alternate JS runtime and execute a large obfuscated bundle at install.

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.