Python | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

In yet another software supply chain attack, it has come to light that two versions of a popular Python artificial intelligence (AI) library named ultralytics were compromised to deliver a cryptocurrency miner. The versions, 8.3.41 and 8.3.42, have since been removed from the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository. A subsequently released version has introduced a security fix that "ensures secure publication workflow for the Ultralytics package." The project maintainer, Glenn Jocher, confirmed on GitHub that the two versions were infected by malicious code injection in the PyPI deployment workflow after reports emerged that installing the library led to a drastic spike in CPU usage , a telltale sign of cryptocurrency mining. The most notable aspect of the attack is that bad actors managed to compromise the build environment related to the project to insert unauthorized modifications after the completion of the code review step, thus leading to a discrepancy in the so...

The administrators of the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository have quarantined the package " aiocpa " following a new update that included malicious code to exfiltrate private keys via Telegram. The package in question is described as a synchronous and asynchronous Crypto Pay API client. The package, originally released in September 2024, has been downloaded 12,100 times to date. By putting the Python library in quarantine, it prevents further installation by clients and cannot be modified by its maintainers.  Cybersecurity outfit Phylum, which shared details of the software supply chain attack last week, said the author of the package published the malicious update to PyPI, while keeping the library's GitHub repository clean in an attempt to evade detection. It's currently not clear if the original developer was behind the rogue update or if their credentials were compromised by a different threat actor. Signs of malicious activity were first spotted i...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two malicious packages uploaded to the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that impersonated popular artificial intelligence (AI) models like OpenAI ChatGPT and Anthropic Claude to deliver an information stealer called JarkaStealer. The packages, named gptplus and claudeai-eng , were uploaded by a user named " Xeroline " in November 2023, attracting 1,748 and 1,826 downloads, respectively. Both libraries are no longer available for download from PyPI. "The malicious packages were uploaded to the repository by one author and, in fact, differed from each other only in name and description," Kaspersky said in a post. The packages purported to offer a way to access GPT-4 Turbo API and Claude AI API, but harbored malicious code that initiated the deployment of the malware upon installation. Specifically, the "__init__.py" file in these packages contained Base64-encoded data that incorporated code to download ...

A Vietnamese-speaking threat actor has been linked to an information-stealing campaign targeting government and education entities in Europe and Asia with a new Python-based malware called PXA Stealer . The malware "targets victims' sensitive information, including credentials for various online accounts, VPN and FTP clients, financial information, browser cookies, and data from gaming software," Cisco Talos researchers Joey Chen, Alex Karkins, and Chetan Raghuprasad said . "PXA Stealer has the capability to decrypt the victim's browser master password and uses it to steal the stored credentials of various online accounts" The connections to Vietnam stem from the presence of Vietnamese comments and a hard-coded Telegram account named " Lone None " in the stealer program, the latter of which includes an icon of Vietnam's national flag and a picture of the emblem for Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security. Cisco Talos said it observed th...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) that has racked up thousands of downloads for over three years while stealthily exfiltrating developers' Amazon Web Services (AWS) credentials. The package in question is " fabrice ," which typosquats a popular Python library known as " fabric ," which is designed to execute shell commands remotely over SSH.  While the legitimate package has over 202 million downloads, its malicious counterpart has been downloaded more than 37,100 times to date. As of writing, "fabrice" is still available for download from PyPI. It was first published in March 2021. The typosquatting package is designed to exploit the trust associated with "fabric," incorporating "payloads that steal credentials, create backdoors, and execute platform-specific scripts," security firm Socket said . "Fabrice" is designed to carry out its malicious actions ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious Python package that masquerades as a cryptocurrency trading tool but harbors functionality designed to steal sensitive data and drain assets from victims' crypto wallets. The package, named "CryptoAITools," is said to have been distributed via both Python Package Index (PyPI) and bogus GitHub repositories. It was downloaded over 1,300 times before being taken down from PyPI. "The malware activated automatically upon installation, targeting both Windows and macOS operating systems," Checkmarx said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. "A deceptive graphical user interface (GUI) was used to distract vic4ms while the malware performed its malicious ac4vi4es in the background." The package is designed to unleash its malicious behavior immediately after installation through code injected into its "__init__.py" file that first determines if the target system is Windows or macOS ...

Cybersecurity researchers have found that entry points could be abused across multiple programming ecosystems like PyPI, npm, Ruby Gems, NuGet, Dart Pub, and Rust Crates to stage software supply chain attacks. "Attackers can leverage these entry points to execute malicious code when specific commands are run, posing a widespread risk in the open-source landscape," Checkmarx researchers Yehuda Gelb and Elad Rapaport said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The software supply chain security company noted that entry-point attacks offer threat actors a more sneaky and persistent method of compromising systems in a manner that can bypass traditional security defenses. Entry points in a programming language like Python refer to a packaging mechanism that allows developers to expose certain functionality as a command-line wrapper (aka console_scripts). Alternatively, they can also serve to load plugins that augment a package's features. Checkmarx noted that while en...

A new set of malicious packages has been unearthed in the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that masqueraded as cryptocurrency wallet recovery and management services, only to siphon sensitive data and facilitate the theft of valuable digital assets. "The attack targeted users of Atomic, Trust Wallet, Metamask, Ronin, TronLink, Exodus, and other prominent wallets in the crypto ecosystem," Checkmarx researcher Yehuda Gelb said in a Tuesday analysis. "Presenting themselves as utilities for extracting mnemonic phrases and decrypting wallet data, these packages appeared to offer valuable functionality for cryptocurrency users engaged in wallet recovery or management." However, they harbor functionality to steal private keys, mnemonic phrases, and other sensitive wallet data, such as transaction histories or wallet balances. Each of the packages attracted hundreds of downloads prior to them being taken down - atomicdecoderss (366 downloads) trondecoderss ...

Threat actors with ties to North Korea have been observed using poisoned Python packages as a way to deliver a new malware called PondRAT as part of an ongoing campaign. PondRAT, according to new findings from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, is assessed to be a lighter version of POOLRAT (aka SIMPLESEA), a known macOS backdoor that has been previously attributed to the Lazarus Group and deployed in attacks related to the 3CX supply chain compromise last year. Some of these attacks are part of a persistent cyber attack campaign dubbed Operation Dream Job , wherein prospective targets are lured with enticing job offers in an attempt to trick them into downloading malware. "The attackers behind this campaign uploaded several poisoned Python packages to PyPI, a popular repository of open-source Python packages," Unit 42 researcher Yoav Zemah said , linking the activity with moderate confidence to a threat actor called Gleaming Pisces. The adversary is also tracked by the wid...

A now-patched critical security flaw impacting Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Composer could have been exploited to achieve remote code execution on cloud servers by means of a supply chain attack technique called dependency confusion. The vulnerability has been codenamed CloudImposer by Tenable Research. "The vulnerability could have allowed an attacker to hijack an internal software dependency that Google pre-installs on each Google Cloud Composer pipeline-orchestration tool," security researcher Liv Matan said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Dependency confusion (aka substitution attack), which was first documented by security researcher Alex Birsan in February 2021, refers to a type of software supply chain compromise in which a package manager is tricked into pulling a malicious package from a public repository instead of the intended file of the same name from an internal repository. So, a threat actor could stage a large-scale supply chain attack by publ...

A new supply chain attack technique targeting the Python Package Index (PyPI) registry has been exploited in the wild in an attempt to infiltrate downstream organizations. It has been codenamed Revival Hijack by software supply chain security firm JFrog, which said the attack method could be used to hijack 22,000 existing PyPI packages and result in "hundreds of thousands" of malicious package downloads. These susceptible packages have more than 100,000 downloads or have been active for over six months. "This attack technique involves hijacking PyPI software packages by manipulating the option to re-register them once they're removed from PyPI's index by the original owner," JFrog security researchers Andrey Polkovnychenko and Brian Moussalli said in a report shared with The Hacker News. At its core, the attack hinges on the fact that Python packages published in the PyPI repository may get removed, making available the names of those deleted projects ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that masquerades as a library from the Solana blockchain platform but is actually designed to steal victims' secrets. "The legitimate Solana Python API project is known as 'solana-py' on GitHub, but simply ' solana ' on the Python software registry, PyPI," Sonatype researcher Ax Sharma said in a report published last week. "This slight naming discrepancy has been leveraged by a threat actor who published a 'solana-py' project on PyPI." The malicious "solana-py" package attracted a total of 1,122 downloads since it was published on August 4, 2024. It's no longer available for download from PyPI. The most striking aspect of the library is that it carried the version numbers 0.34.3, 0.34.4, and 0.34.5. The latest version of the legitimate "solana" package is 0.34.3. This clearly indicates an attempt o...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that targets Apple macOS systems with the goal of stealing users' Google Cloud credentials from a narrow pool of victims. The package, named "lr-utils-lib," attracted a total of 59 downloads before it was taken down. It was uploaded to the registry in early June 2024. "The malware uses a list of predefined hashes to target specific macOS machines and attempts to harvest Google Cloud authentication data," Checkmarx researcher Yehuda Gelb said in a Friday report. "The harvested credentials are sent to a remote server." An important aspect of the package is that it first checks if it has been installed on a macOS system, and only then proceeds to compare the system's Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) against a hard-coded list of 64 hashes. If the compromised machine is among those specified in the predefined set, it attempts to access...

Cybersecurity researchers said they discovered an accidentally leaked GitHub token that could have granted elevated access to the GitHub repositories of the Python language, Python Package Index (PyPI), and the Python Software Foundation (PSF). JFrog, which found the GitHub Personal Access Token, said the secret was leaked in a public Docker container hosted on Docker Hub. "This case was exceptional because it is difficult to overestimate the potential consequences if it had fallen into the wrong hands – one could supposedly inject malicious code into PyPI packages (imagine replacing all Python packages with malicious ones), and even to the Python language itself," the software supply chain security company said . An attacker could have hypothetically weaponized their admin access to orchestrate a large-scale supply chain attack by poisoning the source code associated with the core of the Python programming language, or the PyPI package manager. JFrog noted that the aut...

Did you know it's now possible to build blockchain applications, known also as decentralized applications (or "dApps" for short) in native Python? Blockchain development has traditionally required learning specialized languages, creating a barrier for many developers… until now. AlgoKit , an all-in-one development toolkit for Algorand, enables developers to build blockchain applications in pure Python. This article will walk you through the benefits of building blockchain applications, why Python is an ideal choice for dApp development, how to set up your blockchain development environment, and how to start building secure blockchain applications in native Python.  Why build blockchain applications?  Blockchain application development goes far beyond creating a decentralized database and peer-to-peer transactions. It unlocks a new level of trust, security, and efficiency for various applications. Guarantee tamper-proof records: Blockchain creates an immutable and transpar...

A new Rust-based information stealer malware called Fickle Stealer has been observed being delivered via multiple attack chains with the goal of harvesting sensitive information from compromised hosts. Fortinet FortiGuard Labs said it's aware of four different distribution methods -- namely VBA dropper, VBA downloader, link downloader, and executable downloader -- with some of them using a PowerShell script to bypass User Account Control (UAC) and execute Fickle Stealer. The PowerShell script ("bypass.ps1" or "u.ps1") is also designed to periodically send information about the victim, including country, city, IP address, operating system version, computer name, and username to a Telegram bot controlled by the attacker. The stealer payload, which is protected using a packer, runs a series of anti-analysis checks to determine if it's running in a sandbox or a virtual machine environment, following which it beacons out to a remote server to exfiltrate da...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious Python package uploaded to the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that's designed to deliver an information stealer called Lumma (aka LummaC2). The package in question is crytic-compilers, a typosquatted version of a legitimate library named crytic-compile . The rogue package was downloaded 441 times before it was taken down by PyPI maintainers. "The counterfeit library is interesting in that, in addition [to] being named after the legitimate Python utility, 'crytic-compile,' it aligns its version numbers with the real library," Sonatype security researcher Ax Sharma said . "Whereas the real library's latest version stops at 0.3.7, the counterfeit 'crytic-compilers' version picks up right here, and ends at 0.3.11 — giving off the impression that this is a newer version of the component." In a further attempt to keep up the ruse, some versions of crytic-compilers (e.g., 0.3.9) we...