NEBULA - Seven Fake AI SDK Packages on npm Install a Windows RAT That Needs No DLL

In late September 2026 a single actor published a sequence of malicious npm packages posing as a "NebulaAI" SDK that used an obfuscated preinstall hook to drop a customized KNTRAT remote-access trojan (conhost.exe) on Windows systems; the implant uses direct syscalls to avoid IAT detection, provides HVNC and kernel-streaming for camera/mic, persists via Winlogon Shell, and communicates with 65.87.7.132 using user-agent kntrat/0xB15B00B6. Security recommendations include blocking installs of api-nebula and llm-nebula, restricting network access to the listed C2 IP, and creating detections for the conhost drop location, custom user-agent, named pipes, and hidden-desktop behavior.