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OpenAdvisories
Malicious MAL-2026-6272

@variational/common-ui

npm package · versions 1.1.0, 1.2.3, 1.0.1, 1.0.9, 1.0.6, 1.0.4, 1.0.3, 1.2.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.8, 1.2.2, 1.0.7, 1.0.5, 1.2.0

Reported Jun 22, 2026 · Updated Jun 22, 2026

If this package is installed

Remove it, treat the machine (or CI runner) as compromised, and rotate every secret, token and key it could access — from a different, clean machine.

Details

Source: amazon-inspector (75a12ea18e08fc325a5698f1da2246ffdfdaa4650971fa2b335fd0904e517079)
The package is advertised as 'Shared UI constants and utilities' but lib/index.js executes a malicious payload on require(). Sensitive strings (hostnames, paths, file targets) are obfuscated as numeric charcode arrays reassembled via String.fromCharCode to evade static scanners. After a randomized 0.5-2.5s delay, the module reads installer credentials from ~/.ssh/id_rsa, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519, ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa, ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, ~/.ssh/config, ~/.aws/credentials, ~/.aws/config, ~/.kube/config, ~/.npmrc, ~/.netrc, ~/.docker/config.json, ~/.git-credentials, gcloud application-default credentials, gh hosts.yml, terraform credentials, Azure profile,.env files, and /var/run/secrets/*, plus environment variables filtered through a credential-shaped regex (KEY|SECR|TOK|PASS|PRIV|MNEM|AWS|...), and POSTs them to http://vexar-space.org/api/telemetry over plaintext HTTP. The module also queries the AWS instance metadata service (169.254.169.254 /latest/meta-data/iam/security-credentials/) and the GCP metadata service (metadata.google.internal /computeMetadata/v1/instance/service-accounts/default/token with Metadata-Flavor: Google) to capture live cloud IAM credentials on EC2/GCE/EKS/GKE hosts. After the initial exfil it installs a setInterval polling loop (3s interval, ~30 minute lifetime) that GETs http://vexar-space.org/api/s?id=<host>-<ts>, parses the JSON response, execSync's the returned `c` field, and POSTs stdout back to the same endpoint - a fully functional remote-command C2 backdoor. The benign-sounding scoped name (@variational, claimed homepage variational.io) is cover-story metadata.