MAL-2026-11741

Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-11741

MAL-2026-11741

Summary: Malicious code in @ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal (npm)

Details: npm/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal is affected by the large-scale, self-propagating npm supply-chain worm of 2026-08-04 (the "Shai-Hulud: Here We Go Again" wave) — the same campaign that began with the compromise of the keyv and cacheable maintainer account. The listed version(s) were trojanized and republished by the worm after it reached an npm publish token belonging to a maintainer in this namespace; the payload enumerates every package a stolen token controls and republishes each with the same hook, so many packages under this scope were poisoned in the same short window. Every poisoned release adds a preinstall hook (`"preinstall": "node setup.mjs"`) that runs on a bare `npm install`, before any project code. setup.mjs downloads a standalone Bun runtime and runs a byte-identical, heavily obfuscated ~728 KB second-stage credential stealer (shipped as Math_Symbol.js / math_init.js). It harvests GitHub, npm, AWS, GCP, Azure, HashiCorp Vault and Kubernetes credentials plus generic secrets and private keys (TruffleHog-style sweep), reads CI/CD secrets and identifies build runners, then republishes further packages the stolen token can reach. Rather than a fixed command-and-control host, it exfiltrates stolen findings to attacker-created GitHub repositories (descriptions reading "Shai-Hulud: Here We Go Again") and over DNS. Treat any environment that installed an affected version (with install scripts enabled) as compromised: rotate and revoke all reachable credentials (npm and GitHub tokens, cloud keys, Vault/Kubernetes secrets, and CI org/repo secrets). Part of the August 2026 npm worm that poisoned 400+ packages across many organizations. Source: amazon-inspector (5991a07636825dd40ace1487f0cc65f7ecd4bd80c1dee28eb7cd949dffed3667) The package's `preinstall` script (`node setup.mjs`) is itself obfuscated (obfuscator.io-style `_0xXXXX` identifiers and per-function string-map indirection). At install time it checks for a local `bun` binary and, if absent, downloads a platform-specific Bun release ZIP from `https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/releases/download/bun-v1.3.13/<platform>.zip`, extracts it to a temporary directory, marks it executable, and then invokes that Bun binary against a sibling file `math_init.js` shipped in the tarball (`execFileSync(bun, [math_init.js])`). `math_init.js` is a ~727KB obfuscated blob (shuffled string-array with a rotation function and a custom-alphabet decoder, `@bun`/`@bun-cjs` header) whose contents are opaque without runtime deobfuscation. A babel preset has no functional need for a second language runtime or for executing an obfuscated sibling script at install; running the payload under Bun rather than Node also bypasses Node-focused install-time inspection. The filename (`math_init.js`) is unrelated to the babel-preset purpose declared by the package. This shape — obfuscated preinstall + alternate-runtime dispatch + obfuscated executable payload with a cover-story filename — is a compromised release of the package, delivering attacker-controlled code execution on any machine that runs `npm install`. Source: ghsa-malware (45a838ea6107514ed5dbb471b05de10160b1013cc9ce814c780c2e14446ad249) 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.

References: https://socket.dev/blog/popular-npm-packages-in-the-keyv-and-cacheable-namespaces-compromised-in-active-supply-chain, https://www.aikido.dev/blog/keyv-and-friends-compromised-in-npm-supply-chain-attack, https://safedep.io/keyv-npm-supply-chain-compromise/, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal, https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-mfxj-5cvr-c5xv, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.10, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.8, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.9, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.11, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.12, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.6, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.3, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.4, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.7, https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ornikar/babel-preset-kitt-universal/v/8.0.5