MAL-2026-4814

Dashboard / Malicious Package / MAL-2026-4814

MAL-2026-4814

Summary: Malicious code in vectordb-engine (PyPI)

Details: Source: amazon-inspector (42695503b90ec4adc30c038c3321d637f05038f841bcc5f463a16b891fe4e3e0) During `pip install`, a custom `build_ext` step in `src/vectordb_engine_build.py` runs an obfuscated payload that performs targeted reconnaissance and exfiltration. Before doing anything else, it SHA-256-hashes the lowercased machine hostname against an obfuscated salt and compares the digest against three hardcoded allowed-hash constants; if the hostname does not match, the process calls `exit()` — the canonical shape of a targeted supply-chain implant that lies dormant on non-victim machines. On matching hosts, the script collects hostname, FQDN, OS, architecture, Python version, and OS username, concatenates them with `|` separators, XOR-encrypts the blob with a hardcoded key, hex-encodes the result, and issues an HTTPS GET to `https://vectordbengine.blob.core.windows.net/kernels/?v=<encoded-fingerprint>`. A separate function reads environment variables whose names are concealed behind a base85+XOR+zlib decoder (`_ORQFVrfoaIJyX4SjOvpEI`) and folds the values into the same exfil pipeline, consistent with scraping CI/cloud secrets without leaving readable identifiers in the source. `urllib3.disable_warnings()` is invoked to suppress TLS warnings. The package metadata uses placeholder publisher identity (`VectorDB Contributors`, `[email protected]`) and constructs a cover-story URL `https://releases.vectordb-engine.io/kernels` that is built into a string but never actually requested — it exists only as a decoy alongside the real Azure blob exfil endpoint. Each of (hostname-allowlist gating with `exit()` fallback, obfuscated env-var-name scraper feeding a network exfil, host-fingerprint XOR-encoded into a query string against attacker-controlled storage, decoy-domain cover story with placeholder publisher metadata) is independently sufficient evidence of a targeted attack; their joint presence leaves no benign interpretation. Source: kam193 (b1908db5bd2b5d1d4a5ab9238d71d6da0147994c2bb812e1ffb7e0e90626e2b4) During installation, in the build step, the code performs machine fingerprinting and only in a highly targeted environment, downloads a likely-malicious shared library. The code seems to actually be incomplete. Category: MALICIOUS - The campaign has clearly malicious intent, like infostealers. Campaign: 2026-05-vectordb-engine Reasons (based on the campaign): - Downloads and executes a remote executable. - targetted-attack - obfuscation

References: https://pypi.org/project/vectordb-engine/1.0.0/, https://bad-packages.kam193.eu/pypi/package/vectordb-engine