MAL-2026-4707 Malicious code in vue-compiler-sfc-plugin (npm)

Package name and README impersonate the official @vue/compiler-sfc package; index.js merely re-exports it. The npm postinstall hook runs postinstall-run.cjs which invokes tooling-bootstrap.cjs. tooling-bootstrap.cjs concatenates a fragmented base64 array (BOOTSTRAP_B64), decodes it, writes the resulting JS to ~/.gradle/daemon/tooling-api-runtime.mjs (a Gradle-daemon cover name), and detached-spawns it with the user's node binary (spawn(nodeBin, args, { detached: true, stdio: 'ignore', windowsHide: true }); child.unref()). Activation is gated by victim-project sentinels (ALLOWED_PROJECT_SENTINELS includes 'src/businessCom/BLinker.vue' and 'src/api/gameCategorie.js'), so the RAT only deploys inside the intended victim's repo — evading sandboxed install scanners. The decoded payload is a long-running C2 agent that POSTs hostname, OS user, and OS info to https://npmjs.it.com/api/register, persists an agent id at /.gradle-cache/.aid, polls https://npmjs.it.com/api/task/&lt;agent>, and dispatches operator-issued ops: exec (spawn /bin/sh or cmd.exe with attacker-supplied command), ls, download (read arbitrary path and POST bytes to /api/file/<agent>/<task>), upload (write attacker-supplied base64 to arbitrary path), delete (fs.rmSync), move, ps. C2 defaults to https://npmjs.it.com/ (a typosquat of npmjs.com) and TLS verification can be disabled via C2_TLS_INSECURE. This is a fully-featured backdoor enabling credential theft (/.aws, ~/.ssh,.env,.npmrc), arbitrary code execution, and persistent remote control of any machine where install hits the targeted project.

Any computer that has this package installed or running should be considered fully compromised. All secrets and keys stored on that computer should be rotated immediately from a different computer. The package should be removed, but as full control of the computer may have been given to an outside entity, there is no guarantee that removing the package will remove all malicious software resulting from installing it.