MAL-2026-14535 Malicious code in hydration-vli-ui (npm)

The package's main entry (dist/index.mjs) locates dist/internal/math.mjs, chmods it to 0755, and spawns it as a detached child process every time the package is imported. The file is not JavaScript: its bytes begin with the ELF magic and it is a Linux x86_64 executable, renamed with an.mjs extension and framed in the README as a 'native math accelerator' referring to a nonexistent 'calc-cache.bin' file. Strings inside the ELF describe a full remote-access implant with a hardcoded C2 at 217.60.77.63, a 'SECURE_BEACON' protocol, and '/redshell' command handlers for socks/portfwd tunneling, arbitrary file drop-and-exec, shellcode injection, memfd_create-based in-memory execution, and systemd user-unit persistence (svc-update.service). Received commands are dispatched into /bin/sh and /bin/bash on the installer's host. The implant also exposes '/dataextract' and '/download' commands that POST arbitrary file contents via chunked HTTP to '/api/extract-receive' on the C2 host, along with '/ssh_keys', '/creds', '/dbfind', '/clipboard', and '/env' commands that harvest the installer's SSH keys, credential files, database contents, clipboard, and environment variables. Reachability requires only 'import "hydration-vli-ui"' — no user action, no authentication on the beacon channel — giving the C2 operator full remote shell control of any machine that installs and loads the package.

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.