Experts Identify Fully-Featured Info Stealer and Trojan in Python Package on PyPI
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[![Python Package on PyPI](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mP8Xw8AAoMBgDTD2qgAAAAASUVORK5CYII=)]()

A malicious Python package uploaded to the Python Package Index (PyPI) has been found to contain a fully-featured information stealer and remote access trojan.

The package, named **colourfool**, was identified by Kroll’s Cyber Threat Intelligence team, with the company calling the malware **Colour-Blind**.

“The ‘Colour-Blind’ malware points to the democratization of cybercrime that could lead to an intensified threat landscape, as multiple variants can be spawned from code sourced from others,” Kroll researchers Dave Truman and George Glass [said]() in a report shared with The Hacker News.

colourfool, like [other rogue Python modules]() discovered in recent months, conceals its malicious code in the setup script, which points to a ZIP archive payload hosted on Discord.

The file contains a Python script (code.py) that comes with different modules designed to log keystrokes, steal cookies, and even disable security software.

The malware, besides performing defense evasion checks to determine if it’s being executed in a sandbox, establishes persistence by means of a Visual Basic script and uses transfer[.]sh for data exfiltration.

“As a method of remote control, the malware starts a Flask web application, which it makes accessible to the internet via Cloudflare’s reverse tunnel utility ‘cloudflared,’ bypassing any inbound firewall rules,” the researchers said.

The use of Cloudflare tunnels mirrors [another campaign]() that was disclosed by Phylum last month which made use of six fraudulent packages to deliver a stealer-cum-RAT dubbed poweRAT.

The trojan is feature rich and is capable of gathering passwords, terminating applications, taking screenshots, logging keystrokes, opening arbitrary web pages on a browser, executing commands, capturing crypto wallet data, and even snooping on victims via the web camera.

[![Python Package on PyPI](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mP8Xw8AAoMBgDTD2qgAAAAASUVORK5CYII=)]()

The findings come as threat actors are leveraging the source code associated with [W4SP stealer]() to spawn copycat versions that are [distributed]() via Python packages like ratebypass, imagesolverpy, and [3m-promo-gen-api]().

What’s more, Phylum [discovered]() three more packages – called pycolured, pycolurate, and colurful – that have been used to deliver a Go-based remote access trojan referred to as [Spark]().

Adding to the attacks targeting PyPI, the software supply chain security firm also [revealed details]() of a massive attack campaign wherein the threat actor published as many as 1,138 packages to deploy a Rust executable, which is then used to drop additional malware binaries.

“The risk/reward proposition for attackers is well worth the relatively minuscule time and effort, if they can land a whale with a fat crypto wallet,” the Phylum research team [said]().

“And the loss of a few bitcoin pales in comparison to the potential damage of the loss of a developer’s SSH keys in a large enterprise such as a corporation or government.”

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