houdus

GHSA-frjq-w86w-r3gr

Malicious code in houdus (PyPI)

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 1.0.0`

## Source: kam193 (94c533504ec9815f9ba159827d0c7516c779d03d31fc3ac897317fdbc14c2805)
During import, package loads code disguised as ".wav" file. It performs extensive fingerprinting against sandboxes, and finally downloads and executes heavily obfuscated code. The remote code tries once more to avoid sandbox execution, establishes persistence via scheduled tasks and executes shellcode. Malicious code targets only Windows.


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


Campaign: 2026-09-houdus


Reasons (based on the campaign):


 - obfuscation


 - Downloads and executes a remote malicious script.


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


 - persistence


 - shellcode

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/7c41b0925d6d77855089723649c3d30118aa6f5d/osv/malicious/pypi/houdus/MAL-2026-15933.json))

**References:**
- https://bad-packages.kam193.eu/pypi/package/houdus
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/7c41b0925d6d77855089723649c3d30118aa6f5d/osv/malicious/pypi/houdus/MAL-2026-15933.json
- https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/89f189a75d995218c69c97e8da693d30975dfe5fba9747e032b1f00dd7102182/detection
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/78792aee23e5c759f309a3d2e9397caf2439773e/osv/malicious/pypi/houdus/MAL-2026-15933.json
- https://pypi.org/project/houdus/1.0.0
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-frjq-w86w-r3gr

Compromised versions (1)

= 1.0.0

Any computer that installed or ran a compromised version should be considered fully compromised. Rotate every secret on that machine from a clean environment.