Researchers from Elastic Security Labs have uncovered a malicious campaign that uses npm packages to deliver information-stealing malware and backdoors to both Windows and macOS systems. This operation masquerades as a Web3 venture capital accelerator, named Apex Accelerator, offering free AI credits and security audits to lure cryptocurrency startups and founders. The npm packages, now removed, were called '@apexacc/cli' and '@apexacc/audit' and falsely advertised AI advisory and security scanning tools. Instead, they deployed a macOS backdoor known as CloudSyncD and a custom Windows information stealer that exfiltrates data through Telegram.

The attackers repackaged legitimate coding agents to route requests through their own servers, allowing them to intercept and manipulate large language model (LLM) traffic. This method grants the attackers insight into the prompts and conversation histories handled by AI agents, as well as the ability to inject their own commands. Although the identities of those behind the scheme remain unknown, Russian-language comments were found in the code's commit history.

This deceptive initiative is not new; similar activities were reported in July 2026, where related npm packages distributed a macOS stealer linked to the Atomic Stealer family. The Apex Foundation, connected to this campaign, has been active since at least March 2026, promoting investments and partnerships to cryptocurrency developers. The group has sought to enhance its credibility by participating in events like TOKEN2049 in Singapore. Despite the promises of advanced features, the npm packages fail to deliver legitimate functionality and mainly serve to propagate malware, underscoring the ongoing threats posed by sophisticated cyber campaigns targeting the Web3 space.