Malicious code in @years17/n8n-nodes-utils-helper-e (npm)

The npm package @years17/n8n-nodes-utils-helper-e was found to contain malicious code that automatically executes via a postinstall hook during package installation. The hook runs callback.js (identical to index.js), which performs multiple malicious actions on the host system.\n\nThe script appends a hardcoded SSH public key (labeled pwn@kali) to /home/ubuntu/.ssh/authorized_keys, establishing a persistent SSH backdoor. It then executes shell reconnaissance commands (id, sudo -n id, sudo -n -l, docker ps, docker socket listing, cat /etc/hosts, getent hosts nexus.local, hostname, uname), base64-encodes the output, and exfiltrates it via HTTP GET to https://jasabersama.id/portfolio-data.php with TLS validation disabled.\n\nThe package also registers a malicious n8n node class (HelperUtils, internally named PwnNode.node.js) whose execute() method runs additional system reconnaissance commands via child_process.execSync and returns results marked with a pwned: true indicator.\n\nThe incident was identified and credited to the OpenSSF malicious-packages repository (MAL-2026-13874).