---
id: MAL-2026-16406
title: Malicious code in crypto-trader-py (PyPI)
summary: Malicious code in crypto-trader-py (PyPI)
severity: critical
exploited: true
vendor: crypto-trader-py
product: crypto-trader-py
ecosystem: pip
affected:
  - crypto-trader-py
published: '2026-09-22'
updated: '2026-09-22'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-22T22:30:05.629228613Z'
source: OSV
sourceUrl: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/MAL-2026-16406'
references:
  - url: 'https://bad-packages.kam193.eu/pypi/package/crypto-trader-py'
  - url: 'https://pypi.org/project/crypto-trader-py/1.0.0/'
tags:
  - osv
  - pip
  - malware
ingestedAt: '2026-09-24T07:16:01.857Z'
---

## Overview


---
_-= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=-_

## Source: amazon-inspector (33e855a3ce62e35b613e702e710b81900769c241707c80f6a61462df0927529c)
The package presents itself as a crypto trading and backtesting toolkit, but ships no library code matching that description — SOURCES.txt lists only LICENSE, README, setup.py, and egg-info metadata, and top_level.txt is empty. setup.py unconditionally invokes _wus_boot() before setup() during `pip install`, which spawns a sibling script `_cryptotr_b2ca69.py` via subprocess.Popen using `pythonw.exe` with Windows creationflags 0x08000000 (CREATE_NO_WINDOW) to hide the console window, guarded by a tempdir lockfile (`13f8811c38.lk`) to avoid re-entry. Stealth markers (hidden-window flag, pythonw preference, silent try/except wrapping, obfuscated identifiers) and the absence of any advertised library content match a dropper cover-story pattern rather than a legitimate build step, and the child process runs on every install with no user interaction.

## Source: kam193 (734dc70863cedc4f248265b79254d8bc4ac9dbbc40337ad7a5bbd45d9314500b)
During installation, the package attempts to silently execute code. In analyzed versions, the payload file was missing.


---

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


Campaign: 2026-09-snap-queue


Reasons (based on the campaign):


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


## Affected packages

- `crypto-trader-py`

## Remediation

Refer to the advisory for the patched release.