MAL-2026-6768 Malicious code in @marketfront/blenderdevtool (npm)

The @marketfront/blenderdevtool package is part of a 25-package malicious campaign batch-published to the @marketfront npm scope by npm user 'marketfront' ([email protected]) within a roughly 3-minute window on 2026-07-01. All packages in the campaign were published at version 7.0.0 and use e-commerce/marketing frontend component names as cover.

The package declares a postinstall hook (node scripts/postinstall.js) that executes heavily obfuscated (obfuscator.io-style) code automatically at npm install time. Static analysis of the decoded payload revealed a credential harvester that dynamically requires fs, os, http, https, zlib, path and dns, then reads approximately 20 sensitive credential files including ~/.ssh, ~/.aws/credentials, ~/.kube/config, ~/.docker/config.json, ~/.npmrc, ~/.netrc, ~/.pgpass, ~/.git-credentials, ~/.env and ~/.bash_history. Collected data is exfiltrated via a gzip-compressed HTTPS POST with a custom X-Secret header to the path /api/v1/events, alongside a DNS resolver beacon. The command-and-control host is concealed behind an additional RC4+XOR encryption layer around an embedded configuration blob and was not statically resolved.

The decoded behavioral payload (module requires, credential-file target list, exfiltration headers and endpoint) is byte-for-byte identical across sampled packages in the campaign. The campaign shares tooling and infrastructure patterns (obfuscated postinstall credential harvester, X-Secret header, /api/v1/events exfiltration path, RC4-concealed C2) with the earlier @emcd-vue campaign, indicating the same actor rotating scopes and disposable maintainer emails.

On npm install, scripts/postinstall.js executes an obfuscator.io-style bundle (212-entry RC4-decoded rotated string array, integer opaque predicates, char-code array constructors) that reads installer-owned secret files including ~/.npmrc, ~/.aws/credentials, ~/.ssh/, ~/.docker/config.json and.env, bulk-scrapes process.env, and collects host identifiers (os.hostname, os.userInfo, network interfaces). The collected payload is XOR-encrypted with a key derived from the package identity, chunked into a 33-character alphabet, and exfiltrated as recursive DNS queries via dns.Resolver().resolve to a hardcoded external host — a channel chosen to bypass HTTP egress filtering and proxy allowlists. The install path is gated by an anti-analysis check that scans process.argv and NODE_OPTIONS for instrumentation fingerprints and runs a CPU-timing loop to detect VMs/debuggers, so sandboxed installs appear inert. The package additionally exhibits a dependency-confusion shape: it uses the @marketfront/ scope, its README labels it an 'Internal package — Platform Engineering Team', and its metadata (homepage/repository/bugs) points at *.marketfront.io hosts, indicating the public-registry publish is intended to be resolved in place of an internal package of the same name by a target organization's build pipeline. The README claim of 'anonymous telemetry' is a cover story that does not match the observed behavior.