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OpenAdvisories
Malicious MAL-2026-17756

pafer

PyPI package · versions 0.9.7, 0.9.8

Reported Oct 10, 2026 · Updated Oct 20, 2026

If this package is installed

Remove it, treat the machine (or CI runner) as compromised, and rotate every secret, token and key it could access — from a different, clean machine.

Details

Source: kam193 (a74b7c5b356a87fe0262954cbedbcc432497ab25edaccbade0ce9ce04b16a8c9)
In this campaign, the main package (webreader) has an embeded pickle disguised as a config. A related dependency (pafer) contains code to load the pickle. During unpickling, malicious code embeded in the pickle file is automatically executed. It then establishes persistence via a PTH file and downloads the next stage payload. It finally acts like a RAT, allowing remote exfiltration and code execution.

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Category: MALICIOUS - The campaign has clearly malicious intent, like infostealers.

Campaign: 2026-10-webreader

Reasons (based on the campaign):

- rat

- Downloads and executes a remote malicious script.

- obfuscation

- The package contains code to execute remote commands (probably limited to a specific set) on the victim's machine.

- abuses-pth

- persistence

- The malicious code is intentionally included in a dependency of the package

- files-exfiltration

Indicators of compromise

Shown defanged and not clickable. Search any indicator to find other packages using it.

Domains

URLs