[singulasar]

There's multiple security firms by now that constantly scan updated npm packages for malware. Obviously those companies can only do this after a new package has been published.

Npm could add this as an automated step during publishing. Sure, there's a manual review needed for anything flagged, but you can easily fix this as well by having smth like a trusted contributor program where let's say you'd need 5 votes to overrule a package being flagged as malware