---
id: MAL-2026-18110
title: Malicious code in facewareretargeter (PyPI)
summary: Malicious code in facewareretargeter (PyPI)
severity: critical
exploited: true
vendor: facewareretargeter
product: facewareretargeter
ecosystem: pip
affected:
  - facewareretargeter
published: '2026-10-20'
updated: '2026-11-03'
sourceUpdated: '2026-11-03T21:15:03.389101337Z'
source: OSV
sourceUrl: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/MAL-2026-18110'
references:
  - url: 'https://bad-packages.kam193.eu/pypi/package/facewareretargeter'
  - url: 'https://pypi.org/project/facewareretargeter/9.9.9/'
tags:
  - osv
  - pip
  - malware
ingestedAt: '2026-10-21T11:54:42.742Z'
---

## Overview


---
_-= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=-_

## Source: amazon-inspector (afcd41ab1e378f4c7d767acb2b9e9199a4276e125d6e84aba3627bf37c879f24)
facewareretargeter 9.9.9 ships a 2-line stub module and a setup.py whose install_requires declares a single dependency, `tracer-batch-stream-chain`, sourced from a direct https URL (`https://artifacts.vacsdk.com/pypi/tracer_batch_stream_chain-9.9.9.tar.gz`) rather than a PyPI version range. On `pip install facewareretargeter`, pip fetches that tarball from the non-PyPI host and executes its setup.py / build backend on the installer's machine, with no version pin, no hash, and no integrity check. The host is not a known Python index and is unrelated to any declared repository or homepage, so whoever controls `artifacts.vacsdk.com` can deliver arbitrary code to every installer at any time. The package name resembles a plausible internal/private tool and uses an implausibly high version (9.9.9), which is the dependency-confusion shape used to win resolution against an internal package.

## Source: kam193 (3d3c954fb5fd6d1ddfc1d5e22129468136fb43fe78c6d69f0df134925b6a8b08)
The package uses fake http-downloaded dependencies to track downloads, and has no other purpose.


---

Category: PROBABLY_PENTEST - Packages looking like typical pentest packages, but also anything that looks like testing, exploring pre-prepared kits, research & co, with clearly low-harm possibilities.


Campaign: 2026-10-vacsdk


Reasons (based on the campaign):


 - dependency-confusion


## Affected packages

- `facewareretargeter`

## Remediation

Refer to the advisory for the patched release.