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 (281ede3c5b3181c2df22a4b32a01453a51ac389a1dfe8bde69d53821cbaf20d4)
cipherflow advertises itself as a zero-dependency pure-Python AES/DES library, but cipherflow/_environ.py contains a multi-layer-obfuscated payload that is decoded and passed directly to exec(). The blob is base85-decoded, XOR'd against a 32-byte key, then zlib-decompressed before being executed: `exec(zlib.decompress(bytes(__[i]^_[i%len(_)] for i in range(len(__)))).decode())` with `__ = base64.b85decode(b'MJ*(r4W!?y...')`. This payload is exposed via cipherflow.setup_env() (declared in __all__), whose docstring translates to 'download and execute external environment'. The function is not mentioned anywhere in the README/PKG-INFO. The combination of triple-stacked encoding (base85 + XOR + zlib) terminating in exec(), placement inside a cover-named module (_environ.py / setup_env), and intentional omission from documentation are canonical signals of hidden malicious code execution. Any consumer who imports cipherflow and invokes setup_env() — or any downstream code that does so — runs whatever bytes the author chose to hide, with full process privileges.
Source: kam193 (c5572ca4917ed5ce72dfcb7d82abb3a085cdaed9f1992463800826bc18249f91)
The package contains obfuscated code to download executables from a typosquatted domain.
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Category: MALICIOUS - The campaign has clearly malicious intent, like infostealers.
Campaign: 2026-06-cipherflow
Reasons (based on the campaign):
- obfuscation
- Downloads and executes a remote executable.
Indicators of compromise
Shown defanged and not clickable. Search any indicator to find other packages using it.
Domains
- update[.]windowsuqdate[.]com other packages →
- windowsuqdate[.]com other packages →
URLs
- hxxp://update[.]windowsuqdate[.]com/dfsvc[.]exe other packages →
- hxxp://update[.]windowsuqdate[.]com/dfsvc[.]exe[.]config other packages →
- hxxp://update[.]windowsuqdate[.]com/runtime[.]dat other packages →
- hxxp://update[.]windowsuqdate[.]com/WinlicenseSDK[.]dll other packages →