pyext6cc8cdPyPI
Advisory published Updated
pyext6cc8cd is a confirmed malicious PyPI package (MAL-2026-6488) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious version 1.0.0). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
Malicious code in pyext6cc8cd (PyPI)
What this malware does
On pip install, setup.py decodes a hex string via bytes.fromhex("6f70656e202d612043616c63756c61746f72").decode().split() to the argv open -a Calculator and executes it through subprocess.Popen before setuptools.setup() is called. The command runs unconditionally as part of the install lifecycle. The package metadata is placeholder (Author, Home-page, and Description are all 'UNKNOWN') and the package ships no functional code, so this is a proof-of-concept / test artifact demonstrating arbitrary install-time command execution. While the decoded payload here only opens macOS Calculator, the hex obfuscation of the argv is a deliberate technique to evade scanners that grep setup.py for literal command strings, and the same primitive trivially swaps to a destructive or exfiltration payload. Installers should treat this version as untrusted install-time code execution.
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
Credential / info stealerFind it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for pyext6cc8cd (version 1.0.0).
If you installed it — respond
pyext6cc8cd 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 pyext6cc8cd 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
Detect & block this
O3 blocks pyext6cc8cd-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.