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POPULAR PYTHON AND PHP LIBRARIES HIJACKED TO STEAL AWS KEYS
By
AX SHARMA
* May 24, 2022
* 07:42 AM
* 0
PyPI module 'ctx' that gets downloaded over 20,000 times a week has been
compromised in a software supply chain attack with malicious versions stealing
the developer's environment variables.
The threat actor even replaced the older, safe versions of 'ctx' with code that
exfiltrates the developer's environment variables, to collect secrets like
Amazon AWS keys and credentials.
Additionally, versions of a 'phpass' fork published to the PHP/Composer package
repository Packagist had been altered to steal secrets in a similar fashion.
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PHPass framework has incurred over 2.5 million downloads on the Packagist
repository over its lifetime—although the downloads for malicious versions are
believed to be far more limited.
PYTHON LIBRARY 'CTX' UPLOADS SECRETS TO A HEROKU ENDPOINT
Heavily downloaded PyPI package 'ctx' has been compromised sometime this
month with newly published versions exfiltrating your environment variables to
an external server.
'ctx' is a minimal Python module that lets developers manipulate their
dictionary ('dict') objects in a variety of ways. The package, although popular,
had not been touched since 2014 by its developer, as seen by BleepingComputer.
However, newer versions emerged starting May 15th into this week and contained
malicious code:
PyPI package 'ctx' republished after years of inactivity (BleepingComputer)
A Reddit user jimtk first took notice of the compromised 'ctx' package.
Ethical hacker Somdev Sangwan further reported PHP package 'phpass' having been
compromised with the tainted versions of the library stealing developer's AWS
secret keys:
These claims were vetted by the Sonatype security research team that I am a part
of.
Although PyPI has taken down the malicious 'ctx' versions as of a few hours ago,
copies retrieved from Sonatype's malware archives show presence of malicious
code within all 'ctx' versions. Of note is, the 0.1.2 version that hadn't been
touched since 2014 was also replaced this week with malicious payload:
Malicious code within 'ctx' (BleepingComputer)
Once installed, these versions gather all your environment variables and
upload these values to the following Heroku endpoint:
https://anti-theft-web.herokuapp[.]com/hacked/
At the time of our analysis, the endpoint was no longer active.
PHP PACKAGE 'PHPASS' ALTERED TO STEAL AWS CREDENTIALS
In an identical attack, the fork of an immensely popular Composer/PHP package,
'hautelook/phpass' was compromised with malicious versions published to the
Packagist repository.
PHPass is an open source password hashing framework that can be used by
developers in PHP applications. Released in 2005, the framework has been
downloaded over 2.5 million times on Packagist over its lifetime.
BleepingCompuer also observed malicious commits made to the PHPass project this
week that steal environment variables in a similar fashion.
Within PHPass, the altered 'PasswordHash.php' file specifically looks for
the 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY' and 'AWS_SECRET_KEY' values in your environment. These
secrets are then uploaded to the same Heroku endpoint.
Malicious commits made to PHPass (BleepingComputer)
The presence of identical logic and Heroku endpoints within the PyPI and PHP
packages indicate a common threat actor being responsible for both of these
hijacks.
Researchers claim the attacker's identity is obvious. However, this could've
been a PoC exercise gone wrong and until more information comes to light, it
would be irresponsible to name the person behind 'ctx' and 'phpass' hijack just
yet.
Also, while the malicious PyPI package 'ctx' was live until later today, the
impact from malicious 'PHPass' versions appears to have been far more limited
after Packagist's co-founder Jordi Boggiano marked the hijacked repository as
"abandoned" and pointed everyone to use bordoni/phpass instead:
It is purported that a maintainer account compromise led to the hijacking of
PyPI package 'ctx' but we are yet to find out the real cause.
But, the compromise of hautepass/phpass has been attributed to the attacker
claiming a previously abandoned GitHub repository and reviving that repository
to publish altered 'phpass' versions to the Packagist registry.
This type of attack has earlier been called repo jacking by cybersecurity firm
Security Innovation. More recently, Intezer and Checkmarx released a joint
report building on this research and how it could impact Go projects, dubbing
the attack "chainjacking."
This hijacking incident follows our recent report of a PyPI typosquat that was
caught launching backdoors on Windows, Linux, and Macs.
Earlier this year, vastly popular npm libraries, ua-parser-js, 'coa' and 'rc'
had been hijacked to serve crypto miners and credential stealers.
Following these attacks, GitHub mandated two-factor authentication for
maintainers of Top 100 npm packages, and announced additional security
enhancements.
The ongoing trend of threat actors and bug bounty hunters finding novel tactics
to infiltrate the software supply chain could very well prompt administrators
of other software registries to introduce similar enhancements.
h/t Ilkka Turunen for the tip off.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Open source 'Package Analysis' tool finds malicious npm, PyPI packages
Malicious PyPI package opens backdoors on Windows, Linux, and Macs
Check your gems: RubyGems fixes unauthorized package takeover bug
NPM flaw let attackers add anyone as maintainer to malicious packages
Third npm protestware: 'event-source-polyfill' calls Russia out
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AX SHARMA
Ax Sharma is a Security Researcher and Tech Reporter. His works and expert
analyses have frequently been featured by leading media outlets including
Fortune, Business Insider, The Register, TechRepublic, etc. Ax's expertise lies
in vulnerability research, malware analysis, and open source software. He's an
active community member of the OWASP Foundation, Open Source Security Foundation
(OpenSSF), and the British Association of Journalists (BAJ). Send any tips via
email or Twitter DM.
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