alterks 0.1.19

ALTER KILL SWITCH — Python package scanner, monitor, and supply chain attack mitigation tool.

AlterKS — ALTER KILL SWITCH

Python package scanner, monitor, and supply chain attack mitigation tool.

AlterKS scans your Python dependencies for known vulnerabilities (via OSV.dev) and suspicious package metadata heuristics, then takes configurable action: block installation, quarantine to an isolated environment, or alert with a warning.

Why AlterKS?

Supply chain attacks on PyPI are increasing — typosquatting, dependency confusion, and hijacked maintainer accounts are real threats. Existing tools like pip-audit and safety check for known CVEs, but don't:

• Block installs before they happen — AlterKS wraps pip install with a pre-scan gate
• Score risk heuristically — detect suspicious packages that have no CVEs yet (typosquats, brand-new single-maintainer packages)
• Quarantine instead of just blocking — isolate risky packages for inspection without polluting your environment
• Monitor continuously — detect newly disclosed vulnerabilities against already-installed packages
• Generate constraints — output pip constraint files to lock down your dependency tree

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                         CLI Interface                           │
│  alterks scan | install | monitor | quarantine | report         │
├─────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┤
│  Scanner    │        Heuristic Risk Engine       │   Monitor     │
│  (scanner)  │         (heuristics)               │  (monitor)    │
├─────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
│             │       Data Sources Layer           │               │
│             │  ┌──────────┐  ┌───────────┐      │               │
│             │  │ OSV.dev  │  │ PyPI JSON │      │               │
│             │  │  Client  │  │  Client   │      │               │
│             │  └──────────┘  └───────────┘      │               │
├─────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┤
│                      Action Engine                              │
│            BLOCK  |  QUARANTINE  |  ALERT  |  ALLOW             │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                   Policy Config (pyproject.toml)                │
│         [tool.alterks] severity, allowlist, actions             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Features

• Vulnerability scanning — queries OSV.dev for known CVEs/PYSECs against installed or to-be-installed packages
• Heuristic risk scoring — detects typosquatting, suspiciously new packages, single-maintainer risks, poor metadata quality
• Kill switch actions — block, quarantine, or alert based on configurable severity thresholds
• Pre-install protection — alterks install <pkg> scans before pip installs
• Continuous monitoring — scheduled re-scans detect newly disclosed vulnerabilities with JSON and webhook notifications
• Quarantine management — isolate risky packages in separate virtual environments
• Constraint generation — output pip constraint files to block known-bad versions
• Policy-driven — configure everything via [tool.alterks] in pyproject.toml

Installation

pip install alterks

For development:

pip install alterks[dev]

Quick Start

# Scan your current environment
alterks scan

# Scan a requirements file
alterks scan -r requirements.txt

# Install a package with pre-install scanning
alterks install flask

# Start continuous monitoring
alterks monitor --once

CLI Reference

alterks scan

Scan installed packages or a requirements file for vulnerabilities and heuristic risks.

# Scan current environment (table output)
alterks scan

# Scan with JSON output
alterks scan --format json

# Scan with Markdown output
alterks scan --format markdown

# Scan a requirements file
alterks scan -r requirements.txt

Options:

• -r, --requirements FILE — scan a requirements file instead of the environment
• --format [table|json|markdown] — output format (default: table)

Exit codes: 0 = all clean, 1 = blocked packages found.

alterks install

Pre-scan a package before installing it with pip. Blocks installation if the scan detects critical issues.

# Install with pre-scan
alterks install requests

# Dry-run (scan only, no install)
alterks install flask --dry-run

Options:

• --dry-run — scan only, do not run pip install

alterks quarantine

Manage packages that have been quarantined to isolated virtual environments.

# List quarantined packages
alterks quarantine list

# Inspect a specific quarantined package
alterks quarantine inspect <name> <version>

# Release a package from quarantine
alterks quarantine release <name> <version>

# Remove a quarantined package entirely
alterks quarantine remove <name> <version>

alterks report

Generate a comprehensive scan report of your environment.

# Print JSON report
alterks report --format json

# Write Markdown report to a file
alterks report --format markdown -o report.md

Options:

• --format [table|json|markdown] — output format (default: table)
• -o, --output FILE — write report to a file instead of stdout

alterks monitor

Continuously monitor installed packages for newly disclosed vulnerabilities.

# Run a single scan
alterks monitor --once

# Run every hour
alterks monitor --interval 3600

# Save reports to a JSON-lines file
alterks monitor --json-output reports.jsonl

# Send reports to a webhook
alterks monitor --webhook-url https://example.com/hook

Options:

• --interval SECONDS — scan interval (default: 86400 = 24 hours)
• --once — run a single scan and exit
• --json-output FILE — append JSON-lines reports to a file
• --webhook-url URL — POST scan reports to a webhook endpoint

alterks generate-constraints

Generate a pip constraints file that blocks known-vulnerable versions.

# Print to stdout
alterks generate-constraints

# Write to file
alterks generate-constraints -o constraints.txt

# Then use with pip:
pip install -c constraints.txt -r requirements.txt

Options:

• -o, --output FILE — write constraints to a file instead of stdout

Global Options

All commands support:

• --verbose — enable debug logging
• --quiet — suppress informational output
• --no-color — disable colored output

Configuration

Add to your pyproject.toml:

[tool.alterks]
# Action per severity: "block", "quarantine", "alert", "allow"
severity_actions = { critical = "block", high = "block", medium = "alert", low = "allow" }

# Risk score threshold (0-100) — packages above this trigger the configured action
risk_threshold = 60

# Packages always allowed regardless of scan results
allowlist = ["my-internal-package"]

# Packages always blocked regardless of scan results
blocklist = ["known-malicious-pkg"]

[tool.alterks.heuristic_weights]
typosquatting = 0.30
package_age = 0.20
maintainer_count = 0.15
release_pattern = 0.15
metadata_quality = 0.20

Heuristic Risk Factors

Factor	Weight	What it detects
Typosquatting	30%	Name similarity to top 5,000 PyPI packages
Package age	20%	Recently created packages (< 30 days)
Maintainer count	15%	Single-maintainer packages
Release pattern	15%	Unusual version release cadence
Metadata quality	20%	Missing descriptions, URLs, classifiers

Development

# Clone and install in editable mode
git clone https://github.com/Wan-Saifudin-DS/AlterKS.git
cd AlterKS
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest tests/

# Lint
ruff check src/ tests/

Project Structure

src/alterks/
├── __init__.py          # Version, public API
├── models.py            # Core dataclasses (ScanResult, Vulnerability, PolicyAction)
├── config.py            # Policy config loader from pyproject.toml
├── scanner.py           # Scan orchestrator: environment/requirements scanning
├── heuristics.py        # Composite risk scorer (typosquatting, age, maintainer…)
├── actions.py           # Kill switch logic: block, quarantine, alert
├── quarantine.py        # Isolated venv quarantine manager
├── cli.py               # CLI commands (scan, install, monitor, quarantine, report)
├── pip_hook.py          # Pip install wrapper with pre-scan
├── monitor.py           # Continuous monitoring daemon
├── sources/
│   ├── osv.py           # OSV.dev API client (single + batch queries)
│   └── pypi.py          # PyPI JSON API client for metadata heuristics
└── data/
    └── top_packages.txt # Bundled top-5,000 PyPI package names (typosquatting)

Changelog

v0.1.19 — Usability Fix

• Fixed: alterks monitor termination producing an unhandled Python traceback instead of clean output. KeyboardInterrupt (Ctrl+C) is now caught gracefully, printing a "Monitor stopped by user" message and exiting cleanly.

v0.1.18 — Design Fix

• Fixed: UNKNOWN severity vulnerabilities defaulting to ALLOW (design gap). Vulnerabilities with unresolved severity now default to alert instead of silently passing. The unknown severity mapping is fully configurable in pyproject.toml under [tool.alterks] — users can override to block, quarantine, or allow.
• Changed: Author in package metadata updated to "Ts Dr Wan Saifudin".

v0.1.17 — Bug Fix

• Fixed: Quarantine manifest keyed by name only, causing version collisions (INFO finding). The manifest now uses composite keys (name==version), so multiple versions of the same package can be quarantined independently. The inspect, release, and remove commands accept an optional --version / -v flag to target a specific version. Backward-compatible name-only lookups find the first matching entry.

v0.1.16 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Static typosquatting list goes stale (OWASP A04:2021 — Insecure Design). Added alterks update-db command to dynamically refresh the bundled top-5000 PyPI packages list from hugovk.github.io/top-pypi-packages. Fetches with TLS verification, writes a timestamped file, and invalidates the in-memory cache so subsequent scans use fresh data.

v0.1.15 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Truncated SHA-256 cache key inviting birthday-attack collisions (OWASP A08:2021 — Software and Data Integrity Failures). Cache filenames now use the full 64-character SHA-256 hex digest instead of a 16-character truncation, eliminating practical collision risk.

v0.1.14 — Security Fix

• Fixed: No rate limiting on PyPI requests (OWASP A05:2021 — Security Misconfiguration). Added a configurable request_delay (default 0.1 s) to PyPIClient with time.monotonic()-based throttling between consecutive HTTP requests. Prevents burst traffic that could trigger IP-level rate-limiting bans from PyPI. Cache hits bypass the throttle entirely.

v0.1.13 — Security Fix

• Fixed: No explicit TLS verification enforcement (OWASP A02:2021 — Cryptographic Failures). All httpx clients now explicitly set verify=True — OSV API (AsyncClient), PyPI API (Client), and webhook POST. TLS certificate verification cannot be accidentally disabled or overridden.

v0.1.12 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Broad except Exception blocks replaced with specific exception types (OWASP A09:2021 — Security Logging and Monitoring Failures). OSV errors now catch OSVError/httpx.HTTPError, heuristic failures catch KeyError/TypeError/ValueError/ZeroDivisionError, requirement parsing catches InvalidRequirement/ValueError. Internal logic bugs are no longer silently masked.

v0.1.11 — Security Fix

• Fixed: _parse_spec argument injection in version string (OWASP A03:2021 — Injection). Replaced manual string splitting with packaging.requirements.Requirement for rigorous PEP 508 parsing. Parsed name and version are validated against strict regexes. Crafted specs like pkg==1.0 --index-url=https://evil.com are now rejected.
• Changed: License from MIT to GNU General Public License v3 (GPL-3.0-only).

v0.1.10 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Sensitive data sent to unverified webhook (OWASP A02:2021 — Cryptographic Failures). Webhook payloads are now signed with HMAC-SHA256 when a webhook_secret is configured (via config file or --webhook-secret CLI flag). The X-AlterKS-Signature header is included with each POST. Warnings are logged when sending over plain HTTP or without a secret.

v0.1.9 — Security Fix

• Fixed: TOCTOU race condition in quarantine manifest operations (OWASP A04:2021 — Insecure Design). Manifest writes are now atomic via temp file + os.replace(). All read-modify-write operations are protected by a cross-platform file lock (fcntl/msvcrt), preventing concurrent data loss.

v0.1.8 — Security Fix

• Fixed: PyPI cache poisoning via HMAC-SHA256 integrity verification (OWASP A08:2021 — Software and Data Integrity Failures). Cache entries are now signed with a machine-local secret key; tampered or unsigned entries are discarded and refetched. Cache directory created with restrictive permissions (0700 on Unix).

v0.1.7 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Fail-open on OSV errors (OWASP A04:2021 — Insecure Design). Added fail_closed config option and --fail-closed CLI flag for scan and install. When enabled, OSV query failures result in ALERT instead of silently allowing packages through. Explicit warning logs emitted in both modes.

v0.1.6 — Security Fix

• Fixed: _remove_dir() now enforces path containment — refuses to delete any directory that does not resolve inside the quarantine directory (OWASP A01:2021 — Broken Access Control). Prevents arbitrary directory deletion from a tampered manifest.

v0.1.5 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Quarantine manifest deserialization now validates all JSON keys, field types, package names/versions, and ensures venv_path is safely contained under the quarantine directory (OWASP A08:2021 — Software and Data Integrity Failures). Tampered manifests with unknown fields or path traversal payloads are rejected.

v0.1.4 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Webhook URL validation to prevent SSRF attacks (OWASP A10:2021 — SSRF). Rejects private/reserved IPs, cloud metadata endpoints, non-HTTPS URLs (except localhost), and dangerous schemes.

v0.1.3 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Quarantine release now re-scans the package before installing into the main environment (OWASP A04:2021 — Insecure Design). If the package is still flagged, release is blocked unless --force is used.

v0.1.2 — Security Fix

• Fixed: Pip argument injection via unsanitised package name/version in subprocess calls (OWASP A03:2021 — Injection). All subprocess-based pip invocations now validate inputs against a strict regex and use -- to separate options from arguments.

v0.1.1

• Removed Contributing section from package metadata.

v0.1.0

• Initial release.

License

GPL-3.0-only — see LICENSE for details.

Support

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