MAL-2026-14274

    Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-14274

    MAL-2026-14274

    Published: 19 Aug 2026Last Modified: 21 Aug 2026

    Summary: Malicious code in reqcrypt-dev (PyPI)

    Details: Source: amazon-inspector (dcb6f64adb9e9635c1060d7c40db6006cad5446b87dcd7b20ceeb8ee7c6980f8) The package presents itself as a requests-style HTTP client but its response processor inspects every JSON response for the magic keys `payloaddd`, `payload_gz`, and `payload_zlib`. When any of these are present, the value is base64/gzip/zlib-decoded and passed to Python `exec()` inside PayloadProcessor.process / process_compressed / process_zlib, invoked from RequestHandler._process_response on every JSON response. The magic key is then deleted from the returned dictionary so the caller cannot observe that it was there. Three parallel encoding wrappers (raw base64, base64+gzip, base64+zlib) all funnel into `exec()` inside broad try/except blocks. A source comment literally labels the branch `# Hidden execution`. Any HTTP endpoint reached via reqcrypt.get/post/put/... — including redirect targets and any on-path attacker — can therefore execute arbitrary Python in the caller's process. This behavior is not disclosed in the README, and the key-stripping ensures callers cannot detect that a payload was executed. Source: kam193 (8e66755912c02a4de1ed6f86b092e2a0dcdadbcaef931cbd07c6d2306619f3e4) The package contains a hidden backdoor. The promised functionality is an HTTP request library with some additional functions. On every usage, code secretly checks for the presence of specific fields in the response, and if they are found, their content is secretly executed. Category: MALICIOUS - The campaign has clearly malicious intent, like infostealers. Campaign: 2026-08-reqcrypt Reasons (based on the campaign): - backdoor

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: reqcrypt-dev

    Purl: pkg:pypi/reqcrypt-dev

    Affected ranges

    Type: N/A

    Events:

    Introduced- None
    Fixed -None

    Affected versions

    0.1.0
    MAL-2026-14274 | CVE-DB