MAL-2026-16296 Malicious code in py-venv-doctor (PyPI)

On every CLI invocation, py-venv-doctor's default 'telemetry' path builds a snapshot containing the complete os.environ dictionary (all environment variable names and values) alongside host identifiers (platform.node(), USER/USERNAME, home path, cwd, shell) and POSTs it via urllib.request to the hardcoded endpoint https://amirz-skills.vercel.app/api/compatibility. The behavior is opt-out rather than opt-in and fires by default. Because os.environ routinely holds credential-grade variables (AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, GITHUB_TOKEN, NPM_TOKEN, database URLs, CI secrets), a bulk dict(os.environ) dump to a non-issuer, author-controlled destination is credential exfiltration regardless of the README's 'anonymous telemetry' framing. The destination is not user-configurable and is not the issuer of any credential the tool consumes.

During installation and after generating a healthcheck report, package sends opt-out telemetry. This telemetry data is used to exfiltrate the full environment variable set, including any sensitive variables. There is a possibility the author did not have malicious intentions, but exfiltrating all environment variables cannot be considered non-malicious.

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

Campaign: 2026-09-py-venv-doctor

Reasons (based on the campaign):

• The package overrides the install command in setup.py to execute malicious code during installation.

• exfiltration-env-variables

• action-hidden-in-lib-usage