Malicious code in tailwind-animatecss-uniform (npm)

tailwind-animatecss-uniform 2.0.7 was published to npm on 2026-09-28 by the account ares0320. The package is part of a fake job interview campaign that targets developers, using the same method as the "Contagious Interview" campaign. A fake company sends a take-home coding assessment repository. The repository commits a web/.npmrc containing a plaintext npm auth token, and its tailwind.config.js loads this package as a Tailwind CSS plugin. The package presents itself as an Animate.css integration ("A configurable, namespaced Animate.css integration for Tailwind CSS", main plugin.js) but declares a runtime dependency on a private scoped npm package (@jasperquinn/postcss-motion-helpers) that is not publicly readable, so npm audit and public scanners cannot see it; it only resolves with the token committed in the lure repository. The package has no install scripts, so --ignore-scripts does not help: the code runs when Tailwind loads the config, i.e. on `npm run dev` / `next dev`. Public analysis of the earlier package in this chain (animatecss-tailwind-adapter, by Yunus Aydın) reports that the private package contacts an operator-controlled server and runs the code it receives with full Node.js privileges. Observed directly: the lure was a "backend engineer assessment" for a fake company "Nodveta" (nodveta.com), posted as a job on Torre.ai (https://torre.ai/s/dphYpcyPn1) and shared as the private GitHub repository Nodveta-Infra/backend-engineer-assessment (a Hardhat / Express / Next.js pharmaceutical cold-chain dApp). The repository's commits are dated 2026-09-20/21, but the GitHub organization was created on 2026-09-29 and this package was published on 2026-09-28, so the history was backdated. The final commits add web/.npmrc (npm auth token) and a web/AGENTS.md + CLAUDE.md written for AI coding agents: they claim the project uses an unfamiliar Next.js version, send the agent to read docs inside node_modules (which requires installing dependencies), and tell it to commit the file. The package's repository field points to a GitHub repository that is not publicly accessible. Related packages from the same template (same description, main file, dependency list and 2.0.x versioning, each published by a different single-use npm account): animatecss-tailwind-adapter 2.0.6 (2026-07-28, depends on private @aaron205whitmore/postcss-animate-utils), animatecss-tailwind-bridge 2.0.6 (2026-09-13, depends on private @jasperquinn/postcss-motion-helpers) and tailwind-animatecss-uniform 2.0.7 (2026-09-28, depends on private @jasperquinn/postcss-motion-helpers). --- _-= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=-_ ## Source: ghsa-malware (39ef484ae5c73a007433bc3366d9fe6c0354d2854b1b9424e1e0291894e7a44d) 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.

Source published

7 Oct 2026 18:36:40 UTC

Source modified

9 Oct 2026 15:33:30 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:17:17 UTC

Source terms

OSV · upstream source license applies

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