Malware in PyPi.org libraries

Sept. 18, 2017

SK-CSIRT team iniciated removal of some harmless malware libraries from Python language official repository PyPi. They pointed to the threat for administrators that launched pip installer with escalated privileges without checking the installed library. To install without privileges we recommend the syntax with the flag 'user': pip3 install <package> --user. Malware was found in libraries with names such as crypt (instead of crypto) or urlib3 (instead of urllib3), and in setup.py pinged the server on 121.42.217.44 with current user and host name. Although PyPi administrator have immediately deleted libraries, remember that packages in the repository are not normally being checked by anyone; so install only those you trust.