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Python Pickle Malware Scanner

PyPI Test

Security scanner detecting Python Pickle files performing suspicious actions.

For more generic model scanning, Protect AI's modelscan is now available to scan not only Pickle files but also PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Keras.

Getting started

Scan a malicious model on Hugging Face:

pip install picklescan
picklescan --huggingface ykilcher/totally-harmless-model

The scanner reports that the Pickle is calling eval() to execute arbitrary code:

https://huggingface.co/ykilcher/totally-harmless-model/resolve/main/pytorch_model.bin:archive/data.pkl: global import '__builtin__ eval' FOUND
----------- SCAN SUMMARY -----------
Scanned files: 1
Infected files: 1
Dangerous globals: 1

The scanner can also load Pickles from local files, directories, URLs, and zip archives (a-la PyTorch):

picklescan --path downloads/pytorch_model.bin
picklescan --path downloads
picklescan --url https://huggingface.co/sshleifer/tiny-distilbert-base-cased-distilled-squad/resolve/main/pytorch_model.bin

To scan Numpy's .npy files, pip install the numpy package first.

The scanner exit status codes are (a-la ClamAV):

  • 0: scan did not find malware
  • 1: scan found malware
  • 2: scan failed

Develop

Create and activate the conda environment (miniconda is sufficient):

conda env create -f conda.yaml
conda activate picklescan

Install the package in editable mode to develop and test:

python3 -m pip install -e .

Edit with VS Code:

code .

Run unit tests:

pytest tests

Run manual tests:

  • Local PyTorch (zip) file
mkdir downloads
wget -O downloads/pytorch_model.bin https://huggingface.co/ykilcher/totally-harmless-model/resolve/main/pytorch_model.bin
picklescan -l DEBUG -p downloads/pytorch_model.bin
  • Remote PyTorch (zip) URL
picklescan -l DEBUG -u https://huggingface.co/prajjwal1/bert-tiny/resolve/main/pytorch_model.bin

Lint the code:

black src tests
flake8 src tests --count --show-source

Publish the package to PyPI: bump the package version in setup.cfg and create a GitHub release. This triggers the publish workflow.

Alternative manual steps to publish the package:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade build
python3 -m build
python3 -m twine upload dist/*

Test the package: bump the version of picklescan in conda.test.yaml and run

conda env remove -n picklescan-test
conda env create -f conda.test.yaml
conda activate picklescan-test
picklescan --huggingface ykilcher/totally-harmless-model

Tested on Linux 5.10.102.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64 (WSL2).

References

Download files

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Source Distribution

picklescan-0.0.16.tar.gz (16.0 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

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picklescan-0.0.16-py3-none-any.whl (11.9 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file picklescan-0.0.16.tar.gz.

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  • Download URL: picklescan-0.0.16.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 16.0 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/5.1.0 CPython/3.9.19

File hashes

Hashes for picklescan-0.0.16.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 25cfe271574c8dc1f75136cc9645cfeaf5b98e19a6b598e2a0f506a84778b044
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BLAKE2b-256 5a232fd7124e89b3dbc2eb2d859ca70ac1ec187571d59d9552dca7120ac0ff92

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File details

Details for the file picklescan-0.0.16-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: picklescan-0.0.16-py3-none-any.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 11.9 kB
  • Tags: Python 3
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/5.1.0 CPython/3.9.19

File hashes

Hashes for picklescan-0.0.16-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 f6a59594afae4c3117142392eacb6bf45f21b602d34745372c4f181a9f352d13
MD5 d75d20ee2cf34c2710c675a6328c23ce
BLAKE2b-256 cf5d6c4f1b19b1b35f9992037872b6b84d4de3a5a80417159900504adc900742

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Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

1.0.5

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1.0.4

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This release

0.0.16 This release

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