Which versions of trickery are malicious?

The following PyPI versions of trickery are flagged malicious: 1.0.0, 1.0.1. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate trickery if I installed it?

trickery 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.

I already installed trickery — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If trickery 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.

Is trickery part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — trickery is associated with the 2025-06-old-trickery campaign. Packages in the same campaign often share infrastructure and payloads, so check whether any related packages are also in your dependency tree.

How do I find trickery across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for trickery (2 malicious versions).

Malicious package

trickeryPyPI

Advisory published May 13, 2026Updated May 13, 2026

trickery is a confirmed malicious PyPI package (MAL-2026-3698) that steals credentials and exfiltrates sensitive data (malicious versions 1.0.0, 1.0.1). Do not install it — remove it immediately and rotate any exposed credentials.

Malicious code in trickery (PyPI)

MAL-2026-3698

Immediate action

Remove the package, then rotate any secrets the build/runtime could reach.

pip uninstall trickery

What this malware does

Package contains code to install a backdoor - and additionally to a user-controlled backdoor, it also installs the second, with own C2 server. It's not automatically activated. Once started, it can execute commands from C2 and exfiltrate data.

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

Campaign: 2025-06-old-trickery

Reasons (based on the campaign):

backdoor
files-exfiltration
peristence-autorun
Downloads and executes a remote malicious script.
The package contains code to execute remote commands (probably limited to a specific set) on the victim's machine.

Malicious versions

2 flagged

1.0.01.0.1

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

3ad5df28c8d5f5afa377d6b54a7eac1d3110610783c7e62fbd084a0bd49baac5

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer

Find it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for trickery (2 malicious versions).
If you installed it — respond
trickery 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 trickery 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. trickery on PyPI has been identified as a malicious package (versions 1.0.0, 1.0.1 flagged). It should be removed immediately — do not install or keep it in your dependency tree.

Campaign

2025-06-old-trickery

References

Credits

Kamil Mańkowski (kam193) · reporter

Detect & block this

O3 blocks trickery-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