MAL-2026-16098 Malicious code in bq-build-probe-vrp-2026 (PyPI)

Malicious package Published
Package
bq-build-probe-vrp-2026
Registry
PyPI

What is MAL-2026-16098?

MAL-2026-16098 is a malicious package in bq-build-probe-vrp-2026, published on 9 Sep 2026.

Official description

setup.py executes at pip install and collects a full dump of os.environ, hostname, uid/gid, uname output, /proc/self/cgroup, /proc/version, and the GCE metadata service-account email (http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/service-accounts/default/email), plus sandbox-fingerprinting signals (docker socket presence at /var/run/docker.sock, outbound reachability via socket connect to 8.8.8.8:53). The collected data is written to _build_findings.json inside the installed package, and init.py exposes get_build_findings() to read it back. In a CI/build environment, os.environ typically contains build secrets (CI tokens, cloud credentials, service-account material); embedding that dump inside the built artifact and providing a retrieval API turns any subsequent import or redistribution of the wheel into a channel for the harvested secrets. The package's self-description as authorized VRP testing does not change the mechanism.

What should I do about MAL-2026-16098?

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

Sources

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