Skip to content
OpenAdvisories
Malicious MAL-2026-5519

requests-toolbelt-plus

PyPI package · versions 99.9.9, 99.9.10, 100.0.0, 2026.6.10.172624

Reported Jun 10, 2026 · Updated Jul 8, 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: amazon-inspector (38c64ca050de4910f56bc4a652890b0a378082859cb62153762c6ae08b4b8eae)
The package impersonates the popular `requests-toolbelt` library but ships an empty `requests_toolbelt_plus/__init__.py` and places its real logic in `setup.py`. On `pip install`, setup.py checks `/proc/version` for WSL markers and, when matched, opens a TCP socket to the hardcoded IP 185.184.192.205 on port 4444, sends a JSON beacon containing `os.getlogin()`, `os.uname().nodename`, and `os.getcwd()`, then spawns a background thread that reads JSON commands from the socket and executes them via `subprocess.run(cmd, shell=True, capture_output=True, text=True)`, returning stdout/stderr to the operator — full remote command execution against the installer's machine. setup.py also appends a Python one-liner to `~/.bashrc` that re-opens the same socket, `dup2`s stdio onto it, and execs `/bin/bash -i`, giving the attacker a persistent interactive reverse shell that fires on every new login shell and survives package uninstall. The WSL-only gating is a deliberate evasion to stay dormant on non-WSL maintainer machines and execute only on targeted Windows-Subsystem-for-Linux developer hosts.

Source: kam193 (bd626be82a68d95788077b8b3c87a960c87d971e55496791cedf85154d99087f)
Installing the package or importing the module exfiltrates basic information about the host, and the package has no other purpose.

---

Category: PROBABLY_PENTEST - Packages looking like typical pentest packages, but also anything that looks like testing, exploring pre-prepared kits, research & co, with clearly low-harm possibilities.

Campaign: GENERIC-standard-pypi-install-pentest

Reasons (based on the campaign):

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

- The package overrides the install command in setup.py to execute malicious code during installation.

Indicators of compromise

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

IP addresses