MAL-2026-17702 Malicious code in kafka-helmsman (PyPI)

The sdist for kafka-helmsman 99.0.5 is a dependency-confusion placeholder targeting the internal Tesla project name github.com/teslamotors/kafka-helmsman. setup.py contains no build logic; its top-level code starts a daemon thread that collects hostname, current working directory, os.uname output, a timestamp, and a UUID, then POSTs the JSON body to https://webhook.site/bf5cb178-e0cf-43b6-8b1e-fb5d2f6ea9c9 and additionally transmits the same payload to the OAST host jw1yrpkm5xpav.httpcollaborator.com both over HTTPS and via DNS lookups (nslookup/getent/dig) with a base64-url path. Because setup.py executes during pip metadata and wheel build, the beacon fires on any default pip install kafka-helmsman and on any resolver that evaluates the sdist. The package declares packages=[] and py_modules=[] and ships no functional kafka tooling, so an installer that mis-resolved the public name instead of the internal one receives only the exfiltration payload. README framing of the artifact as Bugcrowd/Tesla research does not change the behavior: installer-identifying data is sent to hardcoded third-party endpoints controlled by the author.

Installing the package or importing the module exfiltrates basic information about the host, and the package has no other purpose.

Category: PROBABLY_PENTEST - Packages looking like typical pentest packages, but also anything that looks like testing, exploring pre-prepared kits, research & co, with clearly low-harm possibilities.

Campaign: GENERIC-standard-pypi-install-pentest

Reasons (based on the campaign):

• The package contains code to exfiltrate basic data from the system, like IP or username. It has a limited risk.

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

The OpenSSF Package Analysis project identified 'kafka-helmsman' @ 99.0.1 (pypi) as malicious.

It is considered malicious because:

• The package communicates with a domain associated with malicious activity.