MAL-2026-5343 Malicious code in progerss-cli (npm)

progerss-cli is a typosquat of the popular cli-progress package that ships an obfuscated payload executed automatically on install.

The package borrows trust from its victim: repository.url is set to https://github.com/npkgz/cli-progress — the legitimate cli-progress project's own repository — and the author field is set to andidittrich (the real maintainer).

package.json defines scripts.postinstall: node build-helper.js, and declares form-data as its only runtime dependency (used for exfiltration).

build-helper.js (load gate): polls up to 31 times at 1.5 s intervals for form-data to resolve (require.resolve('form-data')), then require('./index.js'). This delays payload execution until the exfiltration dependency is fully installed, evading naive install-time analysis that runs before dependencies settle.

index.js: a ~273 KB obfuscated payload that performs data collection and form-data-based HTTP exfiltration.

Package name 'progerss-cli' resembles the common spelling 'progress-cli' via a two-character transposition, which is a typical typosquat shape. No exfiltration, dropper, credential access, or other installer-harm behavior was observed in the scanned files, and no lifecycle scripts were identified. Without a confirmed payload, name similarity alone is not sufficient to block, but the naming pattern warrants human review to assess intent and impact on installers who mistype a target package name.

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.