Which versions of tron-rb are malicious?

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

How do I remediate tron-rb if I installed it?

tron-rb 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 tron-rb — how do I know if it already compromised me?

If tron-rb 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 tron-rb part of a known attack campaign?

Yes — tron-rb is associated with the IN-MAL-2026-021046 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 tron-rb across my projects, lockfiles, and CI pipelines?

Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for tron-rb (version 1.0.0).

Malicious package

tron-rbRubyGems

Advisory published Oct 5, 2026Updated Oct 5, 2026

tron-rb is a confirmed malicious RubyGems package (MAL-2026-17611) 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 tron-rb (RubyGems)

MAL-2026-17611

Immediate action

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

gem uninstall tron-rb

What this malware does

RubyGems runs this gem's native extension script ext/tron-rb/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 advertises TRON protocol helpers but ships only a 45-byte empty C stub (ext/tron-rb/tron-rb.c) and a hardcoded word-list library module; its sole operative code path is in ext/tron-rb/extconf.rb. On gem install, extconf.rb base64-decodes and eval's a Ruby payload that reconstructs a destination URL by XOR'ing a hex byte array against a 4-byte key, resolving to http://45.138.17.177:8092/wgkit.tar.gz. Before firing, the payload applies sandbox/analysis evasion: it bails out on CI environment variables, ephemeral hostnames matching uvm/firecracker/sandbox/vagrant, generated-looking usernames (uA\d+/sandbox/tester/analys/scanner), analysis working-directory prefixes (/opt/rubygems, /tmp/, /workspace/), machine uptime under 30 minutes, and hosts missing developer artifacts (~/.ssh, ~/.gitconfig, ~/.npmrc, ~/.gem/credentials, ~/.bundle). If the gating passes, it double-forks a detached, I/O-nulled process that sleeps 20-40 minutes, then runs curl against the bare-IP URL to download /tmp/.w1.tgz, extracts it to /tmp/.w1, and executes bash /tmp/.w1/wg_install.sh - all before create_makefile is called. The declared native extension is a cover story: there is no real C source for the stub to build, so the extension exists solely to trigger extconf.rb execution during install. Indicators: 45.138.17.177:8092, /tmp/.w1.tgz, /tmp/.w1/wg_install.sh.

Malicious versions

1 flagged

1.0.0

Indicators of compromise (SHA-256)

a483b2d8f8273b5dca3a95d449d762cdfe9d79e8aea485cb89673c469e4cda6f

Detection & response playbook

Credential / info stealer

Find it
Search your lockfiles and build artifacts for tron-rb (version 1.0.0).
If you installed it — respond
tron-rb 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 tron-rb 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. tron-rb 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-2026-021046

References

Credits

Amazon Inspector · finder
SafeDep · finder

Detect & block this

O3 blocks tron-rb-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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