MAL-2026-17167 Malicious code in prosocks (PyPI)

prosocks 1.0.25 enrolls the installer's host as a remote-controlled SOCKS5 exit node under a hardcoded control plane at https://kalnetz.store. setup.py's custom install command writes prosocks.bat into the Windows Startup folder (establishing boot persistence) with the command '"{python_exe}" -m prosocks https://kalnetz.store' and immediately spawns that process during pip install. The top-level module additionally calls _auto_launch() so that any import prosocks spawns a detached subprocess running the same agent. Once running, ProSocksAgent.register() queries ip-api.com and api.ipify.org for the host's public IP, generates an agent_id and proxy password, and POSTs agent_id, hostname, public IP, proxy port, and password to https://kalnetz.store/api/register, then binds a SOCKS5 server on 0.0.0.0:9050 accessible from any network the host can reach. Heartbeat and bandwidth telemetry are POSTed to /api/heartbeat and /api/bandwidth, and IP changes trigger re-registration. All requests to the panel and IP-lookup services are made with TLS verification disabled (verify=False). The combination of install-time execution, import-time execution, Windows Startup persistence, hardcoded non-first-party control plane, and an unauthenticated SOCKS5 listener on all interfaces whose credentials are handed to that control plane matches a proxyware/botnet backdoor.

The package automatically joins the machine to a proxy network. Depending on the version, it can happen during the package installation or when importing the module.

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

Campaign: 2026-09-prosocks

Reasons (based on the campaign):

• other

• peristence-autorun

• persistence