Cybersecurity researchers have found an accidentally leaked GitHub token that could have given unauthorized access to GitHub repositories of Python, Python Package Index (PyPI), and Python Software Foundation (PSF) repositories.
JFrog, the company that discovered the GitHub Personal Access Token, revealed that the secret was leaked in a public Docker container hosted on Docker Hub.
“The potential consequences of this leak could have been severe as it could allow injecting malicious code into PyPI packages and even the Python language itself,” stated the software supply chain security company JFrog.
An attacker could have used the leaked access to carry out a supply chain attack on the Python programming language or the PyPI package manager.
JFrog found the authentication token inside a Docker container, in a compiled Python file named “build.cpython-311.pyc” that was not properly cleaned up.
After responsible disclosure on June 28, 2024, the token linked to the GitHub account of PyPI Admin Ee Durbin was promptly revoked. There is no evidence of the secret being misused.
PyPI stated that the token was issued before March 3, 2023, but the exact date is unknown due to unavailable security logs beyond 90 days.
“While working on cabotage-app5 locally, I faced GitHub API rate limits during the build process,” explained Durbin in a statement.
Durbin admitted to using their own access token in the codebase locally due to convenience, which was not intended for remote use.
Recently, Checkmarx uncovered malicious packages on PyPI that aim to extract sensitive information to a Telegram bot without users’ consent.
These packages, such as testbrojct2, proxyfullscraper, proxyalhttp, and proxyfullscrapers, scan systems for specific file extensions to exfiltrate data to a Telegram bot associated with cybercriminal activities in Iraq.
Yehuda Gelb, a researcher at Checkmarx, revealed that the Telegram bot has been operational since 2022 and has connections to financial theft and data exfiltration.
