10 malicious code packages slither into PyPI registry

Administrators of the Python Package Index (PyPI) have removed 10 malicious software code packages from the registry after a security vendor informed them about the issue.

The incident is the latest in a rapidly growing list of recent instances where threat actors have placed rogue software on widely used software repositories such as PyPI, Node Package Manager (npm), and Maven Central, with the goal of compromising multiple organizations. Security analysts have described the trend as significantly heightening the need for development teams to exercise due diligence when downloading third-party and open source code from public registries.

Researchers at Check Point’s Spectralops.io uncovered this latest set of malicious packages on PyPI, and found them to be droppers for information-stealing malware. The packages were designed to look like legitimate code — and in some cases mimicked other popular packages on PyPI.

Malicious Code in Installation Scripts

Check Point researchers discovered that the threat actors who had placed the malware on the registry had embedded malicious code into the package installation script. So, when a developer used the “pip” install command to install any of the rogue packages, the malicious code would run unnoticed on the user’s machine and install the malware dropper.

For example, one of the fake packages, called “Ascii2text,” contained malicious code in a file (­_init_.py) imported by the installation script (setup.py). When a developer attempted to install the package, the code would download and execute a script that searched for local passwords, which it then uploaded to a Discord server. The malicious package was designed to look exactly like a popular art package of the same name and description, according to Check Point.

Three of the 10 rogue packages (Pyg-utils, Pymocks, and PyProto2) appear to have been developed by the same threat actor that recently deployed malware for stealing AWS credentials on PyPI. During the setup.py installation process, Py-Utils for instance connected to the same malicious domain as the one used in the AWS credential-stealing campaign. Though Pymocks and PyProto2 connected to a different malicious domain during the installation process, their code was near identical to Pyg-utils, leading Check Point to believe the same author had created all three packages.

The other packages include a likely malware-downloader called Test-async that purported to be a package for testing code; one called WINRPCexploit for stealing user credentials during the setup.py installation process; and two packages (Free-net-vpn and Free-net-vpn2) for stealing environment variables.

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