MAL-2026-17753 Malicious code in media-manager5 (PyPI)

The package advertises itself as a 'silent per-user wallpaper rotator for Windows' but ships wallpaper.py, a command-and-control client that connects to the hardcoded endpoint https://googleforum.pythonanywhere.com. On construction of MediaManager5(), the package writes a runner script to %LOCALAPPDATA%\MediaManager5\runner.py and registers a Windows Scheduled Task named 'MediaManager5' with /SC ONLOGON, so the agent is executed via pythonw at every user logon and re-invokes wallpaper.py on a 10-minute loop. The agent registers the host as username@hostname against /api/register and polls /api/client/<id>/poll for commands dispatched through a COMMAND_HANDLERS table that includes an 'exec' handler running arbitrary shell commands via subprocess.run(command, shell=True), plus list/upload/download/delete/rename handlers over arbitrary filesystem paths; handle_download base64-encodes file contents and returns them to the server via /api/client/<id>/result. The wallpaper framing in the package name, README, and docstrings does not match the shipped payload.

The package installs a persistent job that allows the attacker for exfiltrating files and executing remote code on the victim's machine.

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

Campaign: 2026-10-agentaix

Reasons (based on the campaign):

• files-exfiltration

• peristence-autorun

• The package contains code to execute remote commands (probably limited to a specific set) on the victim's machine.

• rat

• persistence

• Downloads and executes a remote malicious script.