coinscanPyPI
Advisory published Updated
coinscan is a confirmed malicious PyPI package (MAL-2026-17197) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious version 0.1.0). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in coinscan (PyPI)
What this malware does
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.
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):
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infostealer
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Downloads and executes a remote executable.
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obfuscation
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malware
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native-extension
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steganography
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c2-in-blockchain
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The package contains code to detect if it is running in a sandbox environment.
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
Credential / info stealerFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for coinscan (version 0.1.0).
If you installed it — respond
coinscan is built to steal secrets, so assume every credential the build or runtime could read is compromised. Remove it from your project and lockfile, then rotate ALL exposed secrets — npm/registry tokens, cloud keys, CI/CD secrets, SSH keys, and any .env values — from a known-clean machine. Audit logs for unauthorized use of those credentials.
Did it already run?
If coinscan was installed, its post-install payload may already have run. Removing the package does not undo that — check outbound connections and credential use from the install window onward.
Frequently asked questions
Campaign
References
Credits
- Amazon Inspector · finder
- Kamil Mańkowski (kam193) · reporter
Detect & block this
O3 blocks coinscan-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.