MAL-2026-17579 Malicious code in with-cte (npm)

[email protected] contains no functional code: its only behaviour is a preinstall script that runs node index.js on npm install. index.js collects the install directory, the user's home directory, hostname, username and DNS servers, and the full contents of /etc/passwd and /etc/hosts, then sends them as JSON in an HTTPS POST to 187d714jo62z5j5c39hc437myd44sxgm.oastify.com, a Burp Collaborator endpoint. The npm account testneo7755 published it on 2026-10-05 and it was unpublished 56 seconds later; the same account published checkmate-remediation-assistant the same day with the same index.js and a different Collaborator subdomain.

The package declares a preinstall lifecycle hook (preinstall: node index.js) that runs automatically on npm install. index.js collects installer host identifiers (os.hostname, os.userInfo, homedir, DNS servers) and reads the contents of /etc/passwd and /etc/hosts, then POSTs the collected data over HTTPS to the Burp Collaborator subdomain 187d714jo62z5j5c39hc437myd44sxgm.oastify.com. The package otherwise contains no library code, has empty author/description metadata, and provides no functionality — the shipped surface is solely the install-time beacon, consistent with a dependency-confusion or internal-name squat probe.