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Malicious package

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)

MAL-2026-6488
Immediate action
Remove the package, then rotate any secrets the build/runtime could reach.
pip uninstall pyext6cc8cd

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

1 flagged
1.0.0

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

f98319eaa02d50e8a098d9cfaaca054df5acc8238dd08b2e24899f700e029a07

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer
  1. Find it

    Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for pyext6cc8cd (version 1.0.0).

  2. 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.

  3. 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

No. pyext6cc8cd on PyPI has been identified as a malicious package (version 1.0.0 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

IN-MAL-2026-007566

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.

Explore

pyext6cc8cd (PyPI) malicious package — MAL-2026-6488 | O3 Security