MAL-2026-3756 Malicious code in cheerio-tool (npm)

cheerio-tool typosquats the popular cheerio HTML parser (README claims 'Cheerio Tool utility helpers', keywords are 'lodash','utilities', and index.js self-describes as 'lodash-js — Just a dummy module. The real payload is in postinstall.js'). On npm install, the declared postinstall script node postinstall.js runs a credential harvester and crypto-wallet scanner. It reads installer secret files including ~/.npmrc, ~/.env, and ~/.git-credentials, extracts npm auth tokens (_authToken, npm_[A-Za-z0-9]{36}), API keys, database URLs, AWS/GCP cloud credentials, payment keys, and webhook secrets. It enumerates Chrome, Brave, Edge, Chromium, Vivaldi, and Opera profile directories, iterates Local Extension Settings/<wallet-id> against 71 hardcoded browser wallet extension IDs (MetaMask nkbihfbeogaeaoehlefnkodbefgpgknn, Phantom, Coinbase, Trust, Ledger, Trezor, etc.), and regex-matches vault, mnemonic, seed phrase, private key, and encrypted-blob material from the LevelDB .log files. It additionally scans ~/Documents, ~/Desktop, and ~/Downloads for files matching seed/backup/wallet/phrase/crypto/metamask/phantom/vault/key/private and checks contents against BIP-39 wordlists. Collected data is bundled with hostname and username and POSTed to hardcoded http://149.28.127.35:8888 (plain HTTP, bare IPv4, overridable via C2_URL env var). The source self-identifies as 'Token harvester + Crypto wallet scanner — Runs on npm install. Silent. Zero trace.' Any developer or CI system that installs this package loses their npm publish token, project environment secrets, git credentials, and browser-resident cryptocurrency wallet seed phrases.