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MALICIOUS (1) package from Python Package Index.

  1. The campaign has clearly malicious intent, like infostealers.

ctf-toolkit

Affected versions: (1) 0.1.0

  1. Version numbers are usually added automatically. In most cases, the packages listed here were created only to distribute malicious code.

Campaign data

Campaign information may not always be 100% accurate for every related package.

Campaign description

The package states to contain a modified curl library to allow low-level request modifications. However, there is also undisclosed malicious behavior:

  1. The package installs a .pth file directly in the site-packages directory, effectively running a special code on each Python usage.
  2. This code performs "TLS context warm-up" by contacting a URL (Github) in the background, in a separate process; this is suspicious on its own as it's unclear how a separate process can warm up further requests in the main process, but...
  3. ...besides the URL given in the code above, the library always contacts a hardcoded URL, identifying itself as a VPN client.

Additionally, there is no source code of the modified library anywhere, and the related Github hosting the package code account is 1-day old.

See more details on the campaign page.

basic_exfiltration

The package contains code to exfiltrate basic data from the system, like IP or username. It has a limited risk.

Look up in other services

  1. May not be available. See more in pypi-json-data repository.
  2. Open Source Insights project, provided by Google.
  3. Service from Socket.dev, a cybersecurity company.
  4. Spectra Assure Community, a service from ReversingLabs, a cybersecurity company.
  5. Service from Snyk, a cybersecurity company.