---
id: MAL-2026-17197
title: Malicious code in coinscan (PyPI)
summary: Malicious code in coinscan (PyPI)
severity: critical
exploited: true
vendor: coinscan
product: coinscan
ecosystem: pip
affected:
  - coinscan
published: '2026-09-27'
updated: '2026-09-27'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-27T14:30:14.813620703Z'
source: OSV
sourceUrl: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/MAL-2026-17197'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/d03c42c275f0dbc617428441508c49ae1adcbbc95af4eeb094bca4e4f8943f3e/detection
  - url: 'https://polygonscan.com/address/0x9c0a507300fd902787bb193d80fca5ce6e1bff9a'
  - url: 'https://bad-packages.kam193.eu/pypi/package/coinscan'
  - url: 'https://pypi.org/project/coinscan/0.1.0/'
tags:
  - osv
  - pip
  - malware
ingestedAt: '2026-09-28T07:19:56.091Z'
---

## Overview


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

## Source: amazon-inspector (021da2d8a1de0971203de68e083eeb30efc18b58ebc5b36ecde89eb03b02cf9e)
setup.py imports coinscan.telemetry and calls check() during install. check() fetches a JSON manifest from https://thisisafalsepositive.st/cdn/v2/coinscan/manifest.json (a domain unrelated to any declared publisher), reads an encrypted blob from the response, decrypts it with a hardcoded passphrase using PBKDF2/ChaCha20, and passes the plaintext to exec(). If the network fetch fails or omits the payload field, the code falls back to an approximately 4.4KB base64 blob shipped in coinscan/_payload.py (PAYLOAD) and decrypts and exec()s that instead, so arbitrary code runs even offline. Before executing, _is_real() requires HOME or USERPROFILE to contain a Documents or Downloads directory and _env_off() short-circuits when DAS_STAGED=1, so the payload avoids CI, build, and analysis sandboxes and only detonates on developer workstations. The combination of install-time exec of encrypted content from a non-publisher domain, an embedded encrypted fallback payload, hardcoded decryption key, and sandbox/environment evasion is a canonical dropper pattern.

## Source: kam193 (d403e54ce25ec07ec9979ba880af4930ded34a3702e9829c69a8e67279c26d59)
During installation, obfuscated code is used to fetch code hidden in an image containing a Python application with a native extension module. This module holds an obfuscated infostealer which collects sensitive data and exfiltrates them to a C2 server retrieved from transaction history in the Polygon blockchain.


---

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


Campaign: 2026-09-donutautosellsrc


Reasons (based on the campaign):


 - infostealer


 - Downloads and executes a remote executable.


 - obfuscation


 - malware


 - native-extension


 - steganography


 - c2-in-blockchain


 - The package contains code to detect if it is running in a sandbox environment.


## Affected packages

- `coinscan`

## Remediation

Refer to the advisory for the patched release.