MAL-2026-17884 Malicious code in getpubip (PyPI)

getpubip/init.py runs exec() on an approximately 2KB opaque payload produced by reversing a string literal, base64-decoding it, and zlib-decompressing it (lambda : import('zlib').decompress(import('base64').b64decode([::-1])); exec(_(b'…'))). The package advertises itself as a three-line helper that returns the host's public IP by calling ipify, and a clean implementation of that functionality exists in core.py; init.py does not re-export get_ip and its only effect on import is to execute the hidden blob. The payload is reached whenever a consumer runs import getpubip or python -m getpubip, so any installer that uses the package executes the concealed code with no further user action. The triple-layered obfuscation (string reverse, base64, zlib) and single-character identifiers are deliberately chosen to hide the executed code from reviewers; whatever the decoded bytes do runs in the installer's process on first import.

During import, obfuscated code downloads and executes an infostealer. Campaign shares some similarities with the campaign 2026-10-fontcase.

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

Campaign: 2026-10-getpubip

Reasons (based on the campaign):

• Downloads and executes a remote executable.

• infostealer

• exfiltration-browser-data

• obfuscation