MAL-2026-18074 Malicious code in animatecss-tailwind-vectrix (npm)

animatecss-tailwind-vectrix (2.0.6, 2.0.7) is a Tailwind CSS plugin from the fake job interview campaign behind MAL-2026-17665 and MAL-2026-17666: the same Animate.css integration template, README and description, published by cypherbyte on 2026-09-28. src/motion.js:5 requires the private scoped package @aaron205whitmore/postcss-animate-utils, which is not readable on the public registry and resolves only with the npm token committed in the lure repository's web/.npmrc, so the code it delivers runs when tailwind.config.js loads the plugin and the dev server starts. The published tarball contains no install scripts and no network code; the payload lives in the private dependency, which was not retrieved. Twenty-six such packages under seventeen accounts were published between 2026-07-28 and 2026-10-09.

The package contains no traced code paths or content patterns indicating exfiltration, install-time or import-time remote code execution, silent relay of caller data, credential distribution, backdoor access, or self-propagation. No lifecycle scripts fetching or executing remote content, no reads of installer secret paths (~/.aws, ~/.ssh, ~/.npmrc, browser stores), no hardcoded attacker-controlled network destinations, and no obfuscated payloads were observed in the shipped files.