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Malicious package

coldcard-helpersPyPI

Advisory published Updated

coldcard-helpers is a confirmed malicious PyPI package (MAL-2026-11516) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious version 1.4.2). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in coldcard-helpers (PyPI)

MAL-2026-11516
Immediate action
Remove the package, then rotate any secrets the build/runtime could reach.
pip uninstall coldcard-helpers

What this malware does

The package presents itself as a helper for the Coldcard hardware wallet, but its actual behavior is credential and wallet theft. setup.py detects 'install' or 'develop' in sys.argv and starts a background thread that subprocess.Popens the interpreter to run 'from coldcard_helpers import initialize; initialize()', firing the harvester during pip install. coldcard_helpers/init.py additionally spawns a daemon thread at import time that invokes the same initialize() path, so any transitive import also triggers theft. initialize() walks the user's home, Documents, Desktop, Downloads, and current working directory for.env, mnemonic.txt, seed.txt, hardhat.config.js, and foundry.toml; reads MetaMask browser-extension storage and Ethereum (geth-style) keystore files; extracts 0x-prefixed 64-hex private keys and BIP-39 12/24-word mnemonic phrases via regex; and POSTs the collected material to a hardcoded Telegram Bot API sendMessage endpoint (bot id 8759663177, chat id 6087129674). The name resembles legitimate Coldcard tooling but no Coldcard-related functionality is present.

When installing the package or importing the module, code starts a background task collecting sensitive data, like sensitive environment variables, private keys for cryptocurrency wallets, SSH keys, and so on to a Telegram channel.

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

Campaign: 2026-08-coldcard-helpers

Reasons (based on the campaign):

  • exfiltration-env-variables

  • exfiltration-ssh-keys

  • exfiltration-crypto

  • exfiltration-credentials

  • uses-telegram-bot

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

Malicious versions

1 flagged
1.4.2

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

127a096109f7b5b2bbedf7f6a9fc2e7baa706e93704ebd52615e744a9838fbc3
8aea0829143169ee7227c8974c3b42125e95b89387a00ccb2b37d1d7344b041a

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer

  1. Find it

    Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for coldcard-helpers (version 1.4.2).

  2. If you installed it — respond

    coldcard-helpers 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.

  3. Did it already run?

    If coldcard-helpers 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

No. coldcard-helpers on PyPI has been identified as a malicious package (version 1.4.2 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

2026-08-coldcard-helpersIN-MAL-2026-010988

References

Credits

  • Amazon Inspector · finder
  • Kamil Mańkowski (kam193) · reporter

Detect & block this

O3 blocks coldcard-helpers-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.

Malware detection Runtime egress monitoring

Explore

All malware advisories How O3 detects malware Vulnerability database