The ctx hosted project on PyPI was taken over via user account compromise and replaced with a malicious project which contained runtime code that collected the content of os.environ.items() when instantiating Ctx objects. The captured environment variables were sent as a base64 encoded query parameter to a heroku application running at https://anti-theft-web.herokuapp.com.

If you installed the package between May 14, 2022 and May 24, 2022, and your environment variables contain sensitive data like passwords and API keys (like AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY), we advise you to rotate your passwords and keys, then perform an audit to determine if they were exploited.

References

• https://github.com/figlief/ctx
• https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/ctx+Python+Library+Updated+with+Extra+Features/28678/
• https://portswigger.net/daily-swig/malicious-python-library-ctx-removed-from-pypi-repo
• https://python-security.readthedocs.io/pypi-vuln/index-2022-05-24-ctx-domain-takeover.html