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Two malicious packages, zebo and cometlogger, were discovered on the Python Package Index (PyPI), capable of stealing keystrokes and hijacking social accounts. These packages, with over 280 downloads combined before being taken down, were found to exfiltrate sensitive information from compromised hosts. This incident highlights the importance of vigilance when using open-source software.

A supply chain attack has compromised open-source packages associated with rspack and vant, injecting cryptomining malware. The compromised packages had hundreds of thousands of weekly downloads, posing a significant threat to users of these projects. The affected version is 1.1.7. This event underscores the growing threat of supply chain attacks targeting open-source software projects. The vulnerability emphasizes the need for stronger security protocols in open-source ecosystems and for better vetting of dependencies.

A malicious PyPI package, ‘aiocpa’, disguised as a legitimate cryptocurrency client, was used to steal cryptocurrency wallet information. Attackers used a stealthy approach, publishing their own package instead of typosquatting. The malicious code was obfuscated using Base64 encoding and zlib compression; it exfiltrated sensitive data to a Telegram bot. This highlights the risk of malicious packages in software supply chains.

A malicious PyPI package, ‘aiocpa’, was discovered to be injecting infostealer code into cryptocurrency wallets. This highlights the risk of malicious code injection into open-source software repositories and the importance of dependency management. The malicious actors did not use typosquatting techniques, but published a legitimate-looking crypto client to attract users.

A malicious PyPI package, ‘aiocpa’, disguised as a legitimate cryptocurrency client tool, implanted infostealer code to compromise cryptocurrency wallets. The attackers used a stealthier approach, publishing their own tool rather than impersonating existing packages. This highlights the risks of using third-party open-source packages without proper security assessment and version pinning. Machine learning-based threat hunting proved crucial in detecting the malicious package.

A new feature called digital attestations has been released on PyPI, the Python Package Index, to bolster supply chain security for Python packages. These attestations essentially function as digital signatures, cryptographically linking packages published on PyPI to the specific source code used for their creation, thus offering stronger assurance that packages downloaded from PyPI haven’t been tampered with or injected with malicious code. This feature utilizes a mechanism that proves a trustworthy build system was used to generate and publish the package, starting with its source code on GitHub. This development significantly enhances the reliability and trust in Python package distribution by providing concrete evidence of package origin and authenticity, mitigating risks associated with malware injection or tampering within the Python ecosystem. While this feature is already available to those using the PyPI Trusted Publishers mechanism in GitHub Actions, a new API has been introduced for consumers and installers to verify published attestations, allowing for broader adoption and increased confidence in package provenance across the Python community.