MAL-2026-4230 Malicious code in cryptoco-auth (npm)

On require(), index.js opens TCP connections to the cloud link-local metadata address 169.254.169.254 across ports 80, 443, 8080, 3000, 5432, and 6379, writing an HTTP probe on each successful connection. The package advertises itself as a crypto authentication library but contains no authentication code — its only runtime behavior is reconnaissance against the AWS/cloud Instance Metadata Service, a well-known precursor to IMDS credential theft on cloud VMs. The package manifest is minimal (no description, author, or repository), and the IP literal is annotated with an Indonesian-language comment explicitly identifying it as the AWS Metadata IP. The lure-style name combined with reconnaissance behavior and absent legitimate functionality is consistent with a malicious package targeting cloud-hosted installers.

The OpenSSF Package Analysis project identified 'cryptoco-auth' @ 1.0.6 (npm) as malicious.

It is considered malicious because:

• The package executes one or more commands associated with malicious behavior.