requests-toolbelt-plusPyPI
Malicious code in requests-toolbelt-plus (PyPI) Remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.
What this malware does
The package impersonates the popular requests-toolbelt library but ships an empty requests_toolbelt_plus/__init__.py and places its real logic in setup.py. On pip install, setup.py checks /proc/version for WSL markers and, when matched, opens a TCP socket to the hardcoded IP 185.184.192.205 on port 4444, sends a JSON beacon containing os.getlogin(), os.uname().nodename, and os.getcwd(), then spawns a background thread that reads JSON commands from the socket and executes them via subprocess.run(cmd, shell=True, capture_output=True, text=True), returning stdout/stderr to the operator — full remote command execution against the installer's machine. setup.py also appends a Python one-liner to ~/.bashrc that re-opens the same socket, dup2s stdio onto it, and execs /bin/bash -i, giving the attacker a persistent interactive reverse shell that fires on every new login shell and survives package uninstall. The WSL-only gating is a deliberate evasion to stay dormant on non-WSL maintainer machines and execute only on targeted Windows-Subsystem-for-Linux developer hosts.
Installing the package or importing the module exfiltrates basic information about the host, and the package has no other purpose.
Category: PROBABLY_PENTEST - Packages looking like typical pentest packages, but also anything that looks like testing, exploring pre-prepared kits, research & co, with clearly low-harm possibilities.
Campaign: GENERIC-standard-pypi-install-pentest
Reasons (based on the campaign):
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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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The package overrides the install command in setup.py to execute malicious code during installation.
Malicious versions
Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)
Detection & response playbook
Credential / info stealerFind it
Scan your lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, etc.) and build artifacts for requests-toolbelt-plus (4 malicious versions). O3 Security's supply-chain scanner checks every dependency against known-malicious package intelligence at install time and in CI, flagging requests-toolbelt-plus across your stack and pipelines.
If you installed it — respond
requests-toolbelt-plus 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 requests-toolbelt-plus was ever installed, its post-install/runtime payload may have already executed. O3's L7 egress monitoring and runtime eBPF sensors detect the credential exfiltration or command-and-control callback after install and block the malicious outbound channel, so you catch and contain the actual compromise — not just the presence of the package.
How O3 protects you
O3 blocks requests-toolbelt-plus before install through its supply-chain scanner, and if it has already run, detects and severs the exfiltration or C2 callback at runtime through L7 egress monitoring and eBPF.
Frequently asked questions
Campaign
References
Credits
- Amazon Inspector · finder
- Kamil Mańkowski (kam193) · reporter
Detect & block this
O3 blocks requests-toolbelt-plus-class packages before install and in CI — and if it already ran, its runtime egress monitoring catches the credential exfiltration and severs the channel.