MAL-2025-4238 Malicious code in reqinstall (PyPI)

Malicious package Published
Package
reqinstall
Registry
PyPI

What is MAL-2025-4238?

MAL-2025-4238 is a malicious package in reqinstall, published on 20 Apr 2025.

Official description

Campaign is split into multiple packages that altogether exfiltrates data from desktop Telegram application.

  1. "pyapiepo" is a cover package that provides some useless features BUT also imports "zscaner"
  2. "zscaner", when imported, automatically runs a function that is an entry point to the whole process; it uses the "scan" from "reqinstall" to walk through directories. The package also provides main logic: filtering files, triggering archiving directories and exfiltrating them.
  3. "reqinstall" ensures "requests" are installed and provides a directory tree scanning function.
  4. "zmaker" provides functions to build archives from collected files.
  5. "zsender" provides functions to exfiltrate data, the remote URL and a function to deobfuscate configuration in other packages.

Altogether, they look for "Telegram Desktop" folder, archive user data stored there and exfiltrate to a remote location.


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

Campaign: 2025-04-zscaner

Reasons (based on the campaign):

  • target:telegram

  • exfiltration-generic

  • The malicious code is intentionally included in a dependency of the package

What should I do about MAL-2025-4238?

Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.

Sources

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