Malicious code in @glitchpad/throttler (npm)
@glitchpad/throttler (malicious version 2.2.3, published by [email protected]) is a trojanized npm package belonging to the wshu.net credential-stealer campaign. The campaign published trojanized look-alike utility packages across 12+ scopes whose publisher accounts all follow the pattern <scope>-<6 random chars>@wshu.net, with every scope created on June 4, 2026 in a ~40-minute burst. This package masquerades as a throttler utility and ships real, working utility code so it passes a glance, while bundling a much larger malicious payload at primer.cjs. package.json declares a postinstall hook ("node ./primer.cjs") that runs the payload automatically on npm install. The payload is heavily obfuscated with javascript-obfuscator (hex-named identifiers, a while (!![]) array-rotation IIFE, base64+RC4 string decoding, control-flow flattening, and runtime-decrypted module resolution to stay out of the static module graph). At runtime it is a Chromium browser credential stealer: it reads Chromium Cookies and Login Data and decrypts saved passwords protected by AES-256-GCM (the v10/v11 app-bound key schemes), then exfiltrates them over HTTPS using a spoofed Mozilla/5.0 user agent. The payload blob is byte-identical to @lazyutil/[email protected] from the same campaign. Malicious payload primer.cjs SHA-256: 68b4fe54a4c05cd0115535ebd4aa8d3cccb03ea5a685f440314814ba1b89e875.
Source: amazon-inspector
package.json declares postinstall: node./primer.cjs. primer.cjs is a 262 KB heavily obfuscated loader (RC4-decoded string array of 1176 entries, control-flow flattening, self-defending anti-debugger regex trap on Function.prototype.toString) that AES-256-GCM-decrypts a hardcoded URL at runtime, performs an HTTPS request with redirect following, writes the response bytes to a temp file, and then spawns a detached Node process against that file (spawn(process.execPath, [tmp], {detached:true, stdio:'ignore'})). The fetched bytes are opaque and the destination is only revealed after runtime decryption. The same dropper is also reachable from the public library API: index.cjs's addToQueue calls require('./primer.cjs').runPrepare?.() on every queue add, so the payload also fires the first time a consumer uses the advertised throttler — defeating the npm install --ignore-scripts mitigation. Publisher metadata is throwaway-shaped (ProtonMail author email, repository pointing at an unrelated personal experiments repo). The package's advertised purpose is an async throttle utility; there is no legitimate reason for it to ship an obfuscated encrypted-URL dropper.
Source: ghsa-malware
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.
