MAL-2026-14302 Malicious code in ai-texts-utils (npm)

[email protected] declares a single runtime dependency, 'ai-texts', shipped as a bundledDependency inside the tarball. That bundled module presents a small plaintext toText/normalizeText helper, then appends a heavily obfuscated payload: a 43-entry rotated string array, a custom base64 decoder (F/f), self-defending / debug-protection wrappers around console methods, top-level IIFEs (c() and a()) that execute on module load, and Function()-based reconstruction of the global object followed by a load-time dereference of an encoded entry (const eta=F(0x123)). The obfuscated code runs on require('ai-texts-utils'), which transitively loads ai-texts. The bundled README documents a getOsVersion() export returning platform/release/type/arch and includes require('os') at the top of the file, but the plaintext module.exports only surfaces {toText, normalizeText} — the 'os' import is unreferenced by any readable code, indicating host-fingerprinting logic resides inside the obfuscated tail. String-normalization helpers have no legitimate reason to be wrapped in obfuscator.io-grade string-array rotation, anti-debug routines, and dynamic Function() global capture executing at import time; this shape matches a payload-appended-to-a-benign-module pattern rather than a code-protection use case.

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.