velabuildnpm
Advisory published Updated
velabuild is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-13493) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious versions 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2…). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in velabuild (npm)
What this malware does
cli.js embeds a base64-encoded RSA private key in CONFIG.encodedSSHKey, decodes it to a temp file with mode 0o600, and uses it to ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -i <key> [email protected] to invoke bash scripts under /home/ubuntu/signing-server for the CLI's signup/login/deploy subcommands. The private key is shipped identically to every installer of the package, so anyone who downloads the tarball obtains valid SSH credentials to the author's server. Installing or requiring the package does not read installer-side secrets, does not fetch or execute attacker-controlled code on the installer, and does not modify the installer's filesystem outside the package's own temp key file. A secondary observation: the rx signup / rx login subcommands pass user-supplied username and password as shell arguments to auth.sh over the shared SSH tunnel, but this only fires when the user explicitly invokes those subcommands and matches the package's documented auth backend.
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.
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
Credential / info stealerFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for velabuild (8 malicious versions).
If you installed it — respond
velabuild is built to steal secrets, so assume every credential the build or runtime could read is compromised. Remove it from your project and lockfile, then rotate ALL exposed secrets — npm/registry tokens, cloud keys, CI/CD secrets, SSH keys, and any .env values — from a known-clean machine. Audit logs for unauthorized use of those credentials.
Did it already run?
If velabuild was installed, its post-install payload may already have run. Removing the package does not undo that — check outbound connections and credential use from the install window onward.
Frequently asked questions
Campaign
References
Credits
- Amazon Inspector · finder
Detect & block this
O3 blocks velabuild-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.