@marketfront/baobabtech

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 7.0.0`

The @marketfront/baobabtech 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.## Source: amazon-inspector (48c6526eab024e5b90615b3480f498d99f768b741191ea5e70d0f72ebabf139e)
@marketfront/[email protected] declares a `postinstall` lifecycle hook (`node scripts/postinstall.js`) that runs unconditionally on `npm install`. scripts/postinstall.js is a ~160 KB obfuscator.io-encoded payload using a rotated string array with per-string RC4/XOR decoders and an anti-analysis gate that insp […]

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/7a608ed15d836e95716bf408b91f8fdc272bbcb9/osv/malicious/npm/@marketfront/baobabtech/MAL-2026-6766.json
- https://safedep.io/marketfront-dependency-confusion-campaign
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/@marketfront/baobabtech/v/7.0.0
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-976c-wgpq-9q76

Compromised versions (1)

• = 7.0.0

Any computer that installed or ran a compromised version should be considered fully compromised. Rotate every secret on that machine from a clean environment.