wallet-balance-scanner

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 0.9.1`

## Source: amazon-inspector (1506ac4eca059796d3f029e96fcfcafc24ffc6ad0b454ae831c06edef4064055)
The gem declares a native extension at ext/wallet_balance_scanner/extconf.rb but ships no C/C++/Rust sources; the extconf.rb is itself the payload rather than a build script, and runs automatically during `gem install`. The script decodes a base64 blob and launches it inside a detached, delayed forked process which opens a TCPSocket to the hardcoded bare-IP C2 45.138.12.177:8089 and pipes /bin/sh to it, handing a shell on the installer's host to the operator of that endpoint. Execution is gated by developer-workstation heuristics: it checks for ~/.ssh, ~/.gitconfig, ~/.npmrc, ~/.gem/credentials and ~/.bundle, requires host uptime over 1800 seconds, and bails out on CI, ephemeral hostnames, generated usernames, and known analysis/sandbox path prefixes, so the backdoor fires only on real developer machines. The lib/wallet_balance_scanner.rb entry and README (which refers to an unrelated `bitcoin_rpc_lite` library) are stubs with no relation to the declared wallet-scanning purpose, consistent with a cover-story gem whose only functional component is the install-time reverse shell.

---

Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/ff41f6680a0ebbef2268cdb5daf253d4b400cb05/osv/malicious/rubygems/wallet-balance-scanner/MAL-2026-17799.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/ff41f6680a0ebbef2268cdb5daf253d4b400cb05/osv/malicious/rubygems/wallet-balance-scanner/MAL-2026-17799.json
- https://rubygems.org/gems/wallet-balance-scanner/versions/0.9.1
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-g92c-g6pm-wf38

Compromised versions (1)

• = 0.9.1

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