MAL-2026-17798

    Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-17798

    MAL-2026-17798

    Published: 11 Oct 2026Last Modified: 13 Oct 2026

    Summary: Malicious code in tron-trc20-utils (RubyGems)

    Details: Source: amazon-inspector (c840b18eadc331896e56720bc9a00f1239807542202bbd4ff9636737f27d0142) The gem's extconf.rb contains a base64-encoded Ruby payload that is decoded and eval'd inside a detached double-forked child during `gem install`. The decoded code opens a TCP connection to 45.138.12.177:8089 and bridges it to /bin/sh, giving the remote operator an interactive shell on the installer's machine. Execution is gated by sandbox/CI-evasion checks: it skips if common CI environment variables are set, if the hostname or username matches sandbox/analyst patterns (uvm/firecracker/sandbox/vagrant/tester/analys/scanner), if the working directory is under /tmp, /opt/rubygems, or /workspace, if /proc/uptime is under 1800 seconds, and it additionally requires developer artifacts such as ~/.ssh, ~/.gitconfig, ~/.gem/credentials, ~/.npmrc, or ~/.bundle to be present. The gem's advertised identity does not match its contents: the gemspec names it `tron-trc20-utils`, the README is for `bitcoin-rpc-lite`, extconf.rb calls `create_makefile('bitcoin_rpc_lite_native')`, and the shipped library is a trivial stub exposing only VERSION, build_id, and healthy? — the install-time reverse shell is the package's only real functionality. Source: ossf-package-analysis (c9add94bc20b1a60a35543af695790edcf781639b586b91bc4f4349355e24cb3) The OpenSSF Package Analysis project identified 'tron-trc20-utils' @ 0.9.1 (rubygems) as malicious. It is considered malicious because: - The package executes one or more commands associated with malicious behavior.

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name: tron-trc20-utils

    Purl: pkg:gem/tron-trc20-utils

    Affected ranges

    Type: N/A

    Events:

    Introduced- None
    Fixed -None

    Affected versions

    0.9.1