MAL-2026-13484 Malicious code in merge-grid-stats (npm)

Package advertises itself as a 2048-style grid game statistics utility, but its declared postinstall hook (node install-cb.js) executes on npm install and performs behavior unrelated to that purpose. The postinstall shells out via execSync to run uname -a and id, reads /proc/1/cgroup and /proc/mounts, inspects Linux capabilities, checks for /var/run/docker.sock, and reads the Kubernetes service-account token and namespace at /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/. It also enumerates /, /root, /root/projects, performs a host write-test, inspects network configuration, and greps the process environment for variables matching token|secret|key|password|db_|redis|s3 and related patterns. The collected data (including the k8s SA token length and env keys) is written to NCODE_ESCAPE.txt in the current working directory and two parent directories. Author metadata is placeholder-shaped (merge-tools <[email protected]>) and the README/behavior mismatch indicates a cover-story shape. The install-time read of an installer-owned Kubernetes service-account token plus environment secret enumeration constitutes installer-side credential access and container-escape reconnaissance staging.