MAL-2026-5688 Malicious code in ecto-nightly-spirit (npm)

On npm install, postinstall.js executes unconditionally and performs three installer-harming actions. (1) It enumerates every key/value pair in process.env and scans for HTB{…} flag patterns (postinstall.js:42-45). (2) It reads a hardcoded list of absolute filesystem paths (/flag.txt, /root/flag.txt, /app/flag.txt, etc.) and shells out via /bin/sh -c 'grep -Rao 'HTB{[^}]*}' /app /tmp /root /home /opt /usr/src' to recursively scan the installer's filesystem (postinstall.js:65). (3) It HTTP-PUTs the discovered string (or a NOFLAG uid=... cwd=... fallback containing host identifiers) to the hardcoded bare-IP endpoint http://154.57.164.70:30569/api/modules/ECT-472839 over plain HTTP. Additionally, postinstall.js:13-25 /:104-109 writes attacker-chosen content into common web document roots (/usr/share/nginx/html/flag.txt, /var/www/html/flag.txt, /app/public/flag.txt, etc.), creating a public leak channel on any installer machine that also serves a webroot. Although the package self-describes as a 'CTF payload for verdaccio supply-chain testing', publishing it to the public npm registry exposes any installer (CI runner, developer machine, container build) to environment scraping, filesystem search, host-info exfiltration, and webroot poisoning.

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.