Latest News

### Summary PickleScan is vulnerable to a ZIP archive manipulation attack that causes it to crash when attempting to extract and scan PyTorch model archives. By modifying the filename in the ZIP header while keeping the original filename in the directory listing, an attacker can make PickleScan raise a BadZipFile error. However, PyTorch's more forgiving ZIP implementation still allows the model to be loaded, enabling malicious payloads to bypass detection. ### Details Python's built-in zipfile module performs strict integrity checks when extracting ZIP files. If a filename stored in the ZIP header does not match the filename in the directory listing, zipfile.ZipFile.open() raises a BadZipFile error. PickleScan relies on zipfile to extract and inspect the contents of PyTorch model archives, making it susceptible to this manipulation. PyTorch, on the other hand, has a more tolerant ZIP handling mechanism that ignores these discrepancies, allowing the model to load even when PickleSca...

### Summary PickleScan fails to detect malicious pickle files inside PyTorch model archives when certain ZIP file flag bits are modified. By flipping specific bits in the ZIP file headers, an attacker can embed malicious pickle files that remain undetected by PickleScan while still being successfully loaded by PyTorch's torch.load(). This can lead to arbitrary code execution when loading a compromised model. ### Details PickleScan relies on Python’s zipfile module to extract and scan files within ZIP-based model archives. However, certain flag bits in ZIP headers affect how files are interpreted, and some of these bits cause PickleScan to fail while leaving PyTorch’s loading mechanism unaffected. By modifying the flag_bits field in the ZIP file entry, an attacker can: - Embed a malicious pickle file (bad_file.pkl) in a PyTorch model archive. - Flip specific bits (e.g., 0x1, 0x20, 0x40) in the ZIP metadata. - Prevent PickleScan from scanning the archive due to errors raised by zipf...

## Description The LocalS3 service's bucket creation endpoint is vulnerable to XML External Entity (XXE) injection. When processing the CreateBucketConfiguration XML document during bucket creation, the service's XML parser is configured to resolve external entities. This allows an attacker to declare an external entity that references an internal URL, which the server will then attempt to fetch when parsing the XML. The vulnerability specifically occurs in the location constraint processing, where the XML parser resolves external entities without proper validation or restrictions. When the external entity is resolved, the server makes an HTTP request to the specified URL and includes the response content in the parsed XML document. This vulnerability can be exploited to perform server-side request forgery (SSRF) attacks, allowing an attacker to make requests to internal services or resources that should not be accessible from external networks. The server will include the responses...

Over 1,000 malicious packages found using low file counts, suspicious installs, and hidden APIs. Learn key detection methods…

This week on the Lock and Code podcast, we speak with Tim Shott about his attempt to find his location data following a major data breach.

A vulnerability, that could result in Remote Code Execution (RCE), has been found in PlotAI. Lack of validation of LLM-generated output allows attacker to execute arbitrary Python code. PlotAI commented out vulnerable line, further usage of the software requires uncommenting it and thus accepting the risk.

Cybersecurity researchers have demonstrated a novel technique that allows a malicious web browser extension to impersonate any installed add-on. "The polymorphic extensions create a pixel perfect replica of the target's icon, HTML popup, workflows and even temporarily disables the legitimate extension, making it extremely convincing for victims to believe that they are providing credentials to

An increasing number of websites use a clipboard hijacker and instruct victims on how to infect their own machine.

The Middle East and North Africa have become the target of a new campaign that delivers a modified version of a known malware called AsyncRAT since September 2024. "The campaign, which leverages social media to distribute malware, is tied to the region's current geopolitical climate," Positive Technologies researchers Klimentiy Galkin and Stanislav Pyzhov said in an analysis published last week.

## Duplicate Advisory This advisory has been withdrawn because it is a duplicate of GHSA-w8jq-xcqf-f792. This link is maintained to preserve external references. ## Original Description picklescan before 0.0.23 fails to detect malicious pickle files inside PyTorch model archives when certain ZIP file flag bits are modified. By flipping specific bits in the ZIP file headers, an attacker can embed malicious pickle files that remain undetected by PickleScan while still being successfully loaded by PyTorch's torch.load(). This can lead to arbitrary code execution when loading a compromised model.