MAL-2025-4238 Malicious code in reqinstall (PyPI)
- 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.
- "pyapiepo" is a cover package that provides some useless features BUT also imports "zscaner"
- "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.
- "reqinstall" ensures "requests" are installed and provides a directory tree scanning function.
- "zmaker" provides functions to build archives from collected files.
- "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.