Malicious code in horde-python-client (PyPI)

Overview

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Source: amazon-inspector (f2ae9afcd7af22c82b137c1142ae643502d82f3d1f28712b2e5c7ec412bea85e)

horde-python-client 99999.0.0 is a dependency-confusion lure. On import horde_python_client, a daemon thread unconditionally POSTs a JSON payload containing the host's hostname, the USER/USERNAME environment variable, and the current working directory to http://109.123.247.172/pypi over plain HTTP. The destination is a bare IP unrelated to any legitimate package publisher. The package ships with placeholder metadata (description "Internal package", author "Security Research") and an absurdly high version number (99999.0.0) — the canonical shape for overriding a target organization's private package of the same name in resolver precedence. Installer harm: any developer or build system that resolves this package and imports it leaks host identifiers to the attacker, confirming a successful dependency-confusion hit and enabling follow-on targeting.

Source: kam193 (ad72fe1fdc56e7fb5716a906fb8481bfe1e477d2f97c649d5db853a79130628a)

Installing the package or importing the module exfiltrates basic information about the host, and the package has no other purpose.

Category: PROBABLY_PENTEST - Packages looking like typical pentest packages, but also anything that looks like testing, exploring pre-prepared kits, research & co, with clearly low-harm possibilities.

Campaign: GENERIC-standard-pypi-install-pentest

Reasons (based on the campaign):

• The package contains code to exfiltrate basic data from the system, like IP or username. It has a limited risk.

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

Affected packages

• horde-python-client

Remediation

Refer to the advisory for the patched release.