IO::Socket::SSL::SelfCertificate versions 1.00 for Perl contains malware which executes Python code from an obfuscated URL. The generate_certificate runs a Python script saved as a certificate file

Overview

IO::Socket::SSL::SelfCertificate versions 1.00 for Perl contains malware which executes Python code from an obfuscated URL.

The generate_certificate runs a Python script saved as a certificate file. The pyhton script attempts to retrieve code from a hardcoded http URL that is obfuscated with base64 encoding and run the response body directly.

The impact is that arbitrary code can be invoked as the user, without a dropped script being saved on the affected host.

The releases have no test scripts nor build hooks. The intention may have been to trigger the payload after installation.

The dropper script is in lib/Crypt/SelfCertificate/sample/cert.pem.

This is similar to CVE-2026-95831 for the module Crypt::SelfCertificate.

The SHA-256 digests of the files are

ba24ee8ec3b7f47f65bed62e16fb413ace50653cf44bd8ea90914390922831e0  IO-Socket-SSL-SelfCertificate-1.00.tar.gz
821d38830e5eb8607738421c25ac25f59fff02a6ab67daa32fbd020429454dac  IO-Socket-SSL-SelfCertificate-1.00/lib/IO/Socket/SSL/SelfCertificate/sample/cert.pem

d483cb7b23b7271cb11cf242bff4a2e1c02df0b9525eb0429abeea8961c399d5  IO-Socket-SSL-SelfCertificate-1.00-upload.tar.gz

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.