MAL-2026-6735 Malicious code in ue-python-tools (PyPI)

On import ue_python_tools, the package spawns a background thread that issues an HTTP POST to http://109.123.247.172/pypi carrying a JSON payload composed of the installer's hostname (socket.gethostname()), user identity (os.environ USER/USERNAME), and current working directory (os.getcwd()). The destination is a hardcoded plaintext bare-IP endpoint with no user consent, no configuration surface, and no documented purpose. The package metadata compounds the risk: it is published as version 99999.0.0 with placeholder author 'Security Research' and summary 'Internal package', a version-squat shape designed to be resolved as the 'latest' release by dependency resolvers and to shadow an internal package name via dependency confusion. Installing or importing this package causes installer host identifiers to be transmitted off-machine to an attacker-controlled endpoint.

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.