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Malicious code in a3s-code (PyPI)

Malware Published Jul 21, 2026 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Jul 21, 2026

Package

pip a3s-code (pip)

Affected versions

= 5.2.8
= 5.3.3

Patched versions

None

Description

Source: amazon-inspector (6062cbfbdc0c31c48564e4ec850d2ce71996d6cf12373c775aed5560c88e5434)

On first import a3s_code, top-level __init__.py invokes _bootstrap.ensure_native_loaded(), which performs an HTTP GET to https://github.com/A3S-Lab/Code/releases/download/..., writes _native.<abi>.so|.pyd|.dylib under ~/.cache/a3s-code/<version>/, and loads it via importlib.machinery.ExtensionFileLoader — executing native code fetched at import time and bypassing pip build isolation. Package metadata (README.md, PKG-INFO, pyproject.toml [project.urls] Homepage) consistently declares the project as github.com/AI45Lab/Code, but the hard-coded fetch base URL in _bootstrap.py is github.com/A3S-Lab/Code — a visually similar but distinct GitHub organization. Hash verification is same-origin (manifest is served from the same base URL) and is silently skipped when the manifest fetch fails, providing no integrity guarantee against the fetched org. The bytes an installer actually executes come from an organization the documentation does not point to, so review of the documented repo does not correspond to what runs on the installer's machine.


Credit: OpenSSF (source)

References

Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jul 21, 2026
Reviewed Jul 21, 2026
Last updated Jul 21, 2026

EPSS score

Weaknesses

Embedded Malicious Code

The product contains code that appears to be malicious in nature. Learn more on MITRE.

GHSA ID

GHSA-7h9h-pqmg-8fwx

Source code

No known source code
Improvements are not currently accepted on this advisory because this package is malware and has no patched versions. If there is something to change, please open an issue at https://github.com/github/advisory-database/issues.