Which versions of bitcoij-ruby are malicious?

The following RubyGems versions of bitcoij-ruby are flagged malicious: 1.0.0. Treat any of these as compromised.

How do I remediate bitcoij-ruby if I installed it?

bitcoij-ruby 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 bitcoij-ruby — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If bitcoij-ruby 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 bitcoij-ruby part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — bitcoij-ruby is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-021051 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 bitcoij-ruby across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for bitcoij-ruby (version 1.0.0).

Malicious package

bitcoij-rubyRubyGems

Advisory published Oct 5, 2026Updated Oct 5, 2026

bitcoij-ruby is a confirmed malicious RubyGems package (MAL-2026-17585) 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 bitcoij-ruby (RubyGems)

MAL-2026-17585

Immediate action

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

gem uninstall bitcoij-ruby

What this malware does

RubyGems runs this gem's native extension script ext/bitcoij-ruby/extconf.rb during gem install. The script exits without action on CI runners and sandboxes, based on CI environment variables, the hostname, the username and the working directory. It continues if the system uptime is over 30 minutes and the home directory holds .ssh, .gitconfig, .npmrc, .gem/credentials or .bundle. It then decodes a Base64 Ruby payload and forks twice into a detached process. After 20 to 40 minutes the payload downloads http://45.138.12.177:8092/wgkit.tar.gz to /tmp/.w1.tgz with curl, extracts it to /tmp/.w1/, runs wg_install.sh with bash and deletes both. The payload stores the URL XOR-encoded with the key usv\x9a. The Ruby code in lib/ is a decoy. The RubyGems account reqthrottle_3474 published this gem and 41 others with the same loader on 2026-10-05.

The gem declares a native extension (ext/bitcoij-ruby/extconf.rb) whose matching C source is an empty 50-byte Init function, so the extension exists solely to run extconf.rb during gem install. extconf.rb base64-decodes a Ruby snippet and eval()s it inside a double-forked, detached child. The decoded payload reconstructs a hardcoded C2 URL via XOR-obfuscated hex bytes resolving to http://45.138.129.177:8092/wgkit.tar.gz, downloads the archive to /tmp over plain HTTP with no integrity check, extracts it, and executes bash /tmp/.w1/wg_install.sh on the installer's machine. Execution is gated by sandbox/analysis evasion checks that skip CI environments, ephemeral hostnames (firecracker/sandbox/vagrant), generated usernames, analysis cwd prefixes (/tmp, /var/tmp, /opt/rubygems, /workspace), hosts with uptime under 1800 seconds, and hosts lacking developer-credential paths (~/.ssh, ~/.gitconfig, ~/.gem/credentials, ~/.bundle, ~/.npmrc); it also sleeps 1200+rand(1200) seconds before firing. The gem is advertised as a pure-Ruby Bitcoin/BIP-39 helper with no legitimate reason to probe developer credential stores or fetch remote shell scripts.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

1.0.0

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

c5384d9d73ce11bd469153ec7603634889186391b9bd312bf84b3ace56950454

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer

Find it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for bitcoij-ruby (version 1.0.0).
If you installed it — respond
bitcoij-ruby 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 bitcoij-ruby 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. bitcoij-ruby on RubyGems 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-2026-021051

References

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder
SafeDep · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks bitcoij-ruby-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

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