---
id: MAL-2026-17325
title: Malicious code in cleanup-string (PyPI)
summary: Malicious code in cleanup-string (PyPI)
severity: critical
exploited: true
vendor: cleanup-string
product: cleanup-string
ecosystem: pip
affected:
  - cleanup-string
published: '2026-09-30'
updated: '2026-09-30'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-30T05:00:07.988002069Z'
source: OSV
sourceUrl: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/MAL-2026-17325'
references:
  - url: 'https://pypi.org/project/cleanup-string/1.0.0/'
tags:
  - osv
  - pip
  - malware
ingestedAt: '2026-09-30T07:22:02.074Z'
---

## Overview


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

## Source: amazon-inspector (844c5afa9f00c02149f4f6314447c5738e04ed419014809c1df83f31aa012525)
The package advertises itself as a pure-Python string helper (strip, slugify, case conversion, whitespace collapse) and its README states the implementation is standard-library only. However, `cleanup_string/__init__.py` performs `from._impl import cleanup`, which loads a 1.3 MB Windows-only native extension `cleanup_string/_impl.cp313-win_amd64.vmp.pyd` (sha256 980ae204f04f9a7e68666670eb5b236bc7347d0111697df1015de665fd1a1712). The filename embeds the VMProtect convention `.vmp` and the binary matches that packer's signature: the only readable strings are Win32 API imports (LoadLibraryA, GetModuleHandleA, HeapAlloc, DisableThreadLibraryCalls, ExitProcess, KERNEL32.dll, VCRUNTIME140.dll) and the remaining ~1.3 MB is high-entropy virtualized code. VMProtect exists to defeat static and dynamic analysis; the trivial advertised functionality has no legitimate need for a virtualized native module. Any Windows Python 3.13 environment that imports `cleanup_string` executes this opaque, anti-analysis-protected code with the privileges of the importing process.


## Affected packages

- `cleanup-string`

## Remediation

Refer to the advisory for the patched release.