It's the internet... we're all unknown to each other, and many modern web apps are running a huge stack of unvetted code.

Honestly, a problem like this is overdue, especially for the NPM ecosystem with its propensity for a huge number of transitive dependencies, but also for all other major repos (nuget, cargo, CPAN, Docker, etc.). OS-based repos (Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD) might feel a little safer because it's harder to become a publisher, but it's not at all impossible. Perhaps the only reason it hasn't been a target before now is because there are easier avenues for cybercrime.

Then let me ask you, how long should have dominic let right9ctrl contribute to the project before trusting him and giving him publish capabilities? With hindsight, we know that right9ctrl is going to publish a backdoor the second he gets rights. How long do you make right9ctrl wait? And does that accomplish what you want?

If you think that ownership transfer should exist at all, then the attack vector still exists no matter how long you wait to trust right9ctrl.

If I give the maid a key to the house, there's always an attack vector, but that doesn't mean I just go hire some rando off craiglist.

There are a number of factors that could be considered when giving somebody this kind of responsibility, including existing contributions to open source, contributions to the project at hand, and public profile. As far as I can tell, "right9ctrl" had none of these.