MAL-2026-17434 Malicious code in live-detection-dashboard (npm)

live-detection-dashboard is a dependency-confusion package: it takes a name that looks like an internal project, uses an inflated version (100.0.0) so it outranks private-registry versions, and runs node setup.js || true as a preinstall script on npm install. setup.js sends the hostname, username, working directory, OS, architecture, Node.js version and configured npm registry, with a per-package tracking token, in an HTTPS POST to https://s85r5k14qk.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod/hook. The npm account amel10 published live-detection-dashboard and 9 similar packages within two minutes on 2026-09-30, all with the same setup.js.

The package's preinstall lifecycle script fires automatically on npm install and issues an HTTPS POST to the hardcoded endpoint https://s85r5k14qk.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/prod/hook, carrying a JSON body composed of installer-side identifiers: os.hostname(), os.userInfo().username, process.cwd(), process.platform, process.arch, the Node.js version, and the configured npm registry, along with a static token. The advertised functionality of the package is a trivial random-hex helper, which does not require network activity or host/user identifiers, and the data flow is neither documented nor caller-configurable. The destination is an author-controlled AWS API Gateway. Package version 100.0.0 combined with a minimal declared purpose and an install-time beacon is consistent with a dependency-confusion / reconnaissance payload targeting internal build environments.