MAL-2026-14516 Malicious code in minecraft-ytreceiver (PyPI)

The package's module polls a hardcoded Telegram bot (api.telegram.org, bot id 8871201315) for commands scoped to a specific chat and topic. On matching messages it downloads a video and forces fullscreen playback while blocking keyboard and mouse input (via keyboard and pynput hooks), kills explorer.exe, and for the /YoutubeCD variant executes shutdown /s /t 0 /f to unconditionally power off the host. The bot token, chat id, topic id, and staging directory components are stored as base64 literals decoded at runtime by a helper function; the staging directory is placed at %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\tools to mimic the legitimate Windows RSA key-storage path. At import time the module silently pip-installs undeclared runtime dependencies (requests, keyboard, pynput, psutil) using CREATE_NO_WINDOW to hide the console, then downloads yt-dlp.exe and deno.exe from the mutable releases/latest GitHub URLs with no hash verification into the disguised staging path and executes them as part of the remotely driven command chain. pyproject metadata is a placeholder (Your Name, no email, homepage, or repository), consistent with a throwaway anonymously published package.

The package hides code for exfiltrating files, recordings from the webcam, screenshots, keylogging.

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

Campaign: 2026-08-minecraft-ytreceiver

Reasons (based on the campaign):

• spyware-like

• files-exfiltration

• uses-telegram-bot

• keylogger