praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026PyPI
Advisory published Updated
praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026 is a confirmed malicious PyPI package (MAL-2026-16240) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious versions 0.0.1, 0.0.2, 0.0.3). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026 (PyPI)
What this malware does
At pip install time, setup.py calls a phone_home() routine at module top-level before setup() runs. The routine collects extensive host and container reconnaissance — hostname, uid/gid, uname, /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/hosts, /proc/self/cgroup, mount output, ps aux, directory listings of /, /app, /home — and serializes the complete process environment via {k: v for k, v in sorted(os.environ.items())}. When ECS_CONTAINER_METADATA_URI_V4 is present, it additionally fetches ECS container and task metadata (which exposes IAM task-role context useful for credential abuse). The aggregated JSON payload is POSTed via urllib.request.urlopen to the hardcoded non-publisher endpoint https://5h6gijnewx787zu6.ixx.sh. The full-environment dump routinely contains CI, cloud, and registry credentials (AWS_*, tokens, secrets), and the ECS metadata read enables IAM role abuse against the installer's cloud account.
During installation, package exfiltrates environment variables, tokens from cloud environments and fingerprints the environment. It identifies itself as a security testing engagement.
Category: MALICIOUS - The campaign has clearly malicious intent, like infostealers.
Campaign: 2026-09-praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026
Reasons (based on the campaign):
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exfiltration-env-variables
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The package contains code to exfiltrate basic data from the system, like IP or username. It has a limited risk.
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exfiltration-cloud-tokens
The OpenSSF Package Analysis project identified 'praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026' @ 0.0.2 (pypi) as malicious.
It is considered malicious because:
- The package executes one or more commands associated with malicious behavior.
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
Credential / info stealerFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026 (3 malicious versions).
If you installed it — respond
praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026 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 praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026 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
- OpenSSF: Package Analysis · finder
Detect & block this
O3 blocks praetorian-mind-rce-test-2026-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.