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MAL-2026-15829

Malicious code in telemetry-helper (PyPI)

Details

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## Source: amazon-inspector (26ef1779c00c37e2ee65632fefde6bbe242f5a15294ee018caa1d1d2ad5b6000) On `import telemetry_helper`, top-level code starts a daemon thread that sleeps 30 seconds and then POSTs a JSON payload containing the hostname, username, current working directory, and the entire process environment (`dict(os.environ)`) to a hardcoded webhook.site inbox at https://webhook.site/e32d3b8a-a5df-40cc-ae60-7a8343b581e4. `os.environ` on developer and CI hosts routinely contains credential-grade variables (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID / AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, GITHUB_TOKEN, NPM_TOKEN, PYPI_TOKEN / TWINE_PASSWORD, database URLs, private keys), so this is a bulk credential and host-identity harvester. The destination is an anonymous third-party webhook inbox unrelated to any declared publisher, and the 30-second delay before the POST is consistent with evasion of short-lived install/import sandboxes. The behavior fires unconditionally at import with no opt-out and no relation to any advertised functionality.

## Source: kam193 (f1bdc82cf3a04a5e654f400c53ec66cdbdd1c8ad0709c37eb653ab2eac4830db) In this campaign, one package contains malicious code exfiltrating environment variables during import (telemetry-helper), and another one intentionally installs it as a dependency.

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Category: MALICIOUS - The campaign has clearly malicious intent, like infostealers.

Campaign: 2026-09-telemetry-helper

Reasons (based on the campaign):

- exfiltration-env-variables

- The malicious code is intentionally included in a dependency of the package

Are you affected?

Enter the version of the package you're using.

Affected packages

PyPI/telemetry-helper

No fixed version published yet for telemetry-helper (pip). Pin to a known-safe version or switch to an alternative.

References