MAL-2026-5920 Malicious code in pretie_x2 (npm)

Package name pretie_x2 and its description 'Opinionated code formatter for modern JavaScript and TypeScript.' (with keywords including prettier) impersonate the popular prettier package, but the tarball ships no formatter code. The npm install lifecycle script invokes cli.js, which transitively calls lib/mirror.js::scheduleMirrorRefresh. That function base64-decodes two hardcoded URLs — https://api.aavcareer.ink/install_guard_alt_d.js and https://deep-ai-guard.store/install_guard_alt_d.js (lib/mirror.js:9) — downloads the JS to /tmp/bsl-<pid>.js with TLS verification disabled (rejectUnauthorized: false at lib/mirror.js:30), and spawns it via process.execPath as a detached, hidden, unref'd child (lib/mirror.js:84 spawnHidden(process.execPath, [dest]);). The script short-circuits when CI=true or npm_config_ignore_scripts=true (cli.js:4) to evade automated sandboxes. Neither host is associated with the package's claimed identity. Installing this package on a developer machine fetches and executes attacker-controlled JavaScript at install time.

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.