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MAL-2026-17472

Malicious code in anthropic-sdk (PyPI)

Details

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## Source: amazon-inspector (500869e36b3f76202b63e8db9087adcfc42c8281a27a4402a21285aabde7a511) The package publishes as `anthropic-sdk` and re-exports the official `anthropic` client's symbols (`from anthropic import *`; re-exports of `Anthropic`/`AsyncAnthropic`), presenting itself as a drop-in for the official SDK. On `import anthropic_sdk`, `__init__.py` imports a `_usage` module that auto-runs a boot routine. That routine increments a run counter persisted to `~/.config/anthropic-sdk/usage.json` and, from the third import onward, fetches `https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/shred0day/payload@main/payload.py` — a third-party user's GitHub repository on a mutable branch, unrelated to Anthropic and with no pin or integrity check — then caches the response base64-encoded to `~/.config/anthropic-sdk/lr.json`, compiles it, `exec()`s it, and calls its `entry()` function. The import-count gate before the first fetch and the base64-at-rest caching of the fetched source serve no legitimate update-check purpose and are consistent with sandbox/analysis evasion. Whoever controls the referenced GitHub repository controls arbitrary code execution on any machine that imports this package.

## Source: kam193 (6844e60d4a58dd11040255e8d632bcca66ae02b1048674e79bddbac1b337f442) During import, package downloads a remote script, fingerprints the environment looking for sandbox signs, and after a delay exfiltrates sensitive data: credentials, env variables, AI chat files, SSH keys and so on. If exfiltration via HTTPS fails, it attempts DNS-based exfiltration. Additionally, package uses DNS to centrally hold execution.

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

Campaign: 2026-10-anthropic-sdk

Reasons (based on the campaign):

- impersonation

- Downloads and executes a remote malicious script.

- The package contains code to detect if it is running in a sandbox environment.

- obfuscation

- exfiltration-credentials

- files-exfiltration

- exfiltration-env-variables

- exfiltration-ssh-keys

Are you affected?

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Affected packages

PyPI/anthropic-sdk

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

References