Which versions of netcontrol-agent are malicious?

The following npm versions of netcontrol-agent are flagged malicious: 1.0.5. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate netcontrol-agent if I installed it?

netcontrol-agent establishes remote access, so treat any host that installed it as fully compromised. Isolate the machine, remove the package, rotate all credentials it could reach, and rebuild from a trusted image rather than cleaning in place — a backdoor may have planted additional persistence.

I already installed netcontrol-agent — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If netcontrol-agent was ever installed, its post-install/runtime payload may have already executed. O3's L7 egress monitoring and runtime eBPF sensors detect the credential exfiltration or command-and-control callback after install and block the malicious outbound channel, so you catch and contain the actual compromise — not just the presence of the package.

Is netcontrol-agent part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — netcontrol-agent is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-010743 campaign. Packages in the same campaign often share infrastructure and payloads, so check whether any related packages are also in your dependency tree.

How do I find netcontrol-agent across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for netcontrol-agent (version 1.0.5). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging netcontrol-agent across your stack and pipelines.

Malicious package

netcontrol-agentnpm

Malicious code in netcontrol-agent (npm) Remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

MAL-2026-10741

Immediate action

Remove the package, then rotate any secrets the build/runtime could reach.

npm uninstall netcontrol-agent

What this malware does

netcontrol-agent.js implements a remote agent that long-polls a configured server URL and pipes the returned bytes directly into an interactive shell's stdin (cmd.exe on Windows, $SHELL or /bin/bash -i on Linux), while streaming stdout/stderr back to the server's /session/<id>/output endpoint. The relayLoop auto-attaches to any session the server advertises, so whoever controls NC_SERVER_URL obtains full interactive command execution on every host running the agent. The --install path escalates blast radius by writing a systemd unit that runs the agent as root, or a Windows scheduled task with /RU SYSTEM /RL HIGHEST /SC ONSTART, providing boot persistence at maximum privilege. An NC_AUTO_UPDATE mode downloads a replacement agent script from the same server and atomically overwrites AGENT_PATH, letting the server push arbitrary new code to installed hosts on the next poll. Collected host identifiers (os.hostname(), version) are also POSTed to the server. The remote-shell-plus-persistence-plus-self-update composition is a full backdoor mechanism regardless of the package's self-description.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

1.0.5

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

967b375e5686bd1eab74838f00cd21c2a8e15291f03a8140b494a83052fd2a92

Detection & response playbook

Backdoor / remote access

Find it
Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for netcontrol-agent (version 1.0.5). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging netcontrol-agent across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
netcontrol-agent establishes remote access, so treat any host that installed it as fully compromised. Isolate the machine, remove the package, rotate all credentials it could reach, and rebuild from a trusted image rather than cleaning in place — a backdoor may have planted additional persistence.
Did it already run?
If netcontrol-agent was ever installed, its post-install/runtime payload may have already executed. O3's L7 egress monitoring and runtime eBPF sensors detect the credential exfiltration or command-and-control callback after install and block the malicious outbound channel, so you catch and contain the actual compromise — not just the presence of the package.
How O3 protects you
O3 blocks netcontrol-agent before install through its supply-chain scanner, and if it has already run, detects and severs the exfiltration or C2 callback at runtime through L7 egress monitoring and eBPF.

Frequently asked questions

No. netcontrol-agent on npm has been identified as a malicious package (version 1.0.5 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-010743

References

npmjs.com

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks netcontrol-agent-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the C2 callback and severs the channel.

Malware detection Runtime egress monitoring