MAL-2026-5781 Malicious code in portal-backend (npm)

Malicious package Published
Package
portal-backend
Registry
npm

What is MAL-2026-5781?

MAL-2026-5781 is a malicious package in portal-backend, published on 15 Jun 2026.

Official description

On npm install, the package's preinstall hook executes postinstall.js, which enumerates process.env and filters keys matching a broad credential-shaped regex (key|secret|token|pass|private|ssh|deploy|auth|api|rpc|wallet|sentry|docker|graph|slack|host), then bundles those values together with os.hostname(), os.userInfo().username, process.cwd(), and npm registry config into a JSON payload and POSTs it via https.request to 185.130.46.35:8443/collect — a bare IP with no relation to any publisher domain. The source even self-identifies the behavior in a comment ("Exfil CI environment variables on install"). The package itself is hollow: index.js is module.exports = {}, the description is the generic "Internal package," and the version is 999.0.0 — the canonical dependency-confusion shape designed to outrank a private registry's portal-backend and have misconfigured installers fetch this public copy instead. Installing this package on any developer or CI machine immediately ships that machine's CI secrets, deploy tokens, SSH/registry credentials, and host identity to the attacker.

What should I do about MAL-2026-5781?

Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.

Sources

Also known as GHSA-6j4w-8j7h-8c6c.

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