MAL-2026-16331 Malicious code in element-plus-vite-cli (npm)

On load (main index.js → bin/cli.js), the package invokes tooling-bootstrap.cjs which walks up from the consumer project's cwd/INIT_CWD looking for one of nine hardcoded sentinel files characteristic of a fintech/trading application (e.g. src/api/AITrading.js, src/api/agentShot.ts, src/pages/ETF-quant-trading/history.vue, src/views/orderCenter/orderCenter.vue). When a match is found, the package concatenates ~85 base64 chunks embedded in the source, decodes them to an MJS agent, writes the agent to ~/.gradle-cache/tooling-api-runtime.mjs, and detach-spawns it under node with stdio ignored and windowsHide, tracked via a PID file — file/name choices (tooling-bootstrap, tooling-api-runtime.mjs,.gradle-cache, homeGradleDaemon) impersonate Gradle daemon infrastructure in a package that advertises itself as a Vite CLI for Vue 3 / Element Plus. The dropped agent registers to https://npmjs.it.com/api/register with os.hostname(), os.userInfo().username, and os.type()/os.release() plus a persistent UUID cached at ~/.gradle-cache/.aid, then long-polls /api/task/<agent_id> and executes attacker-supplied operations: exec (spawn cmd.exe /c or /bin/sh -c on attacker-supplied command strings), ls, download (exfiltrate arbitrary files to /api/file/…), upload (write base64 to arbitrary paths), delete (rm -rf), ps, and move, POSTing results to /api/result/<agent_id>. The agent also honors C2_TLS_INSECURE=1 to set NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0 and reads C2_SERVER_URL to override the hardcoded host npmjs.it.com (a typosquat lookalike for npmjs.com).