Which versions of with-cte are malicious?

The following npm versions of with-cte are flagged malicious: 1.0.0. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate with-cte if I installed it?

with-cte 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 with-cte — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If with-cte 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.

Is with-cte part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — with-cte is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-021080 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 with-cte across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for with-cte (version 1.0.0).

Malicious package

with-ctenpm

Advisory published Oct 5, 2026Updated Oct 7, 2026

with-cte is a confirmed malicious npm package (MAL-2026-17579) that opens a backdoor for remote access (malicious version 1.0.0). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in with-cte (npm)

MAL-2026-17579

Immediate action

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

npm uninstall with-cte

What this malware does

[email protected] contains no functional code: its only behaviour is a preinstall script that runs node index.js on npm install. index.js collects the install directory, the user's home directory, hostname, username and DNS servers, and the full contents of /etc/passwd and /etc/hosts, then sends them as JSON in an HTTPS POST to 187d714jo62z5j5c39hc437myd44sxgm.oastify.com, a Burp Collaborator endpoint. The npm account testneo7755 published it on 2026-10-05 and it was unpublished 56 seconds later; the same account published checkmate-remediation-assistant the same day with the same index.js and a different Collaborator subdomain.

The package declares a preinstall lifecycle hook (preinstall: node index.js) that runs automatically on npm install. index.js collects installer host identifiers (os.hostname, os.userInfo, homedir, DNS servers) and reads the contents of /etc/passwd and /etc/hosts, then POSTs the collected data over HTTPS to the Burp Collaborator subdomain 187d714jo62z5j5c39hc437myd44sxgm.oastify.com. The package otherwise contains no library code, has empty author/description metadata, and provides no functionality — the shipped surface is solely the install-time beacon, consistent with a dependency-confusion or internal-name squat probe.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

1.0.0

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

8eceeb0a05cd8d1a289f1a1006df8acd825d73f341ec1a50e095dc2850b866c8

Detection & response playbook

Backdoor / remote access

Find it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for with-cte (version 1.0.0).
If you installed it — respond
with-cte 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 with-cte 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

No. with-cte on npm has been identified as a malicious package (version 1.0.0 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-021080

References

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder
InvisiRisk, Inc. · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks with-cte-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

Explore

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