MAL-2026-6749 Malicious code in ipa-user-collector (PyPI)

The package ships an empty runtime module (src/ipa_user_collector/init.py contains only version) but overrides setup.py cmdclass for install, develop, and egg_info to run a helper that fetches and executes an attacker-controlled binary at install time. Hostnames and module names are XOR-obfuscated (key 0x5A) and imported dynamically via importlib to conceal indicators. The helper contacts a Cloudflare Workers endpoint (package-proxy..workers.dev) with a DNS TXT fallback (.lin.dl.wel1.ru) to retrieve a payload from /pkg/package-proxy, writes it to /var/tmp/.cache_<random>, chmods 0o755, spawns it detached via subprocess.Popen(start_new_session=True), and unlinks the file. A /tmp/.pip_ref cooldown marker suppresses repeated execution within 6 hours. The package name and 'TBank Engineering' vendor label appear crafted as a dependency-confusion lure for an internal-sounding utility. Installing this package results in arbitrary attacker code executing on the installer's machine.

During installation the obfuscated code downloads a malicious executable from a remote location. Code is designed to survive different blocks: first, there is an attempt to download the executable from one of five Cloudflare Workers. If it's not successful, the code falls back to download using DNS: first, it gets a TXT record from c.lin.dl.wel1[.]ru. This record returns a number, which is then used to iterate over domains in the form <0…n>.lin.dl.wel1[.]r and reconstruct the encoded executable from their TXT records. The executable is finally saved under a partially random name, executed, and removed after execution. The Linux executable contacts a few domains, but there is no more detailed information about its behavior available.

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

Campaign: 2026-07-haproxy-config-client

Reasons (based on the campaign):

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

• Downloads and executes a remote executable.

• obfuscation

• dependency-confusion

• other

• malware

• covering-tracks

• targetted-attack

• data-stored-in-dns