A security report documents a malicious npm release of @subql/[email protected] (published 2026-10-05) that adds a postinstall hook and a new dist file which execute automatically when the package is required. The compromised release was published via the project's trusted npm publisher using GitHub Actions OIDC from gitHead 506863d, indicating either the release pipeline or an upstream commit was breached. The malicious file contains an array of 459 Base64 strings that are XOR-decoded, gunzipped and executed in a detached process; a prior redteam-tagged 5.8.3 variation contains no payload, raising questions about an unauthorized publish.
The payload collects environment variables, GitHub auth tokens, SSH keys, .npmrc, cloud provider credentials (AWS/GCP/Azure), Kubernetes and Vault secrets, crypto wallets and AI-agent configs, then exfiltrates data encrypted (RSA-OAEP + AES-256-GCM) to ci-artifacts.dev. It uses stolen tokens to push a branch dependabot/github_actions/format/setup-formatter that adds a workflow which dumps repository secrets to an artifact, spoofs the commit author as github-advanced-security, and installs a reverse shell beacon. Indicators include domain ci-artifacts.dev and provided SHA-256 hashes for the tarball and manifest-cache.js. Recommended responses are to deprecate/unpublish 5.8.3 and reset latest to 5.8.2, rotate all CI/GitHub/npm/cloud secrets, audit workflows and commits (notably commit 506863d), and treat any affected machines or runners as compromised.
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