Skip to main content

Python Pickle Malware Scanner

PyPI Test

Security scanner detecting Python Pickle files performing suspicious actions.

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 --line-length 140
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

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

picklescan-1.0.0.tar.gz (26.1 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

picklescan-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl (21.8 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file picklescan-1.0.0.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: picklescan-1.0.0.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 26.1 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.9.25

File hashes

Hashes for picklescan-1.0.0.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 f8719f30d44c70970113d6126b559f2e4abdd7fb86230ca00929b86bfe8f294f
MD5 e8a42a8c79200aa22a8cc23e49309b6f
BLAKE2b-256 5dea2c27c74811b37c67510c6f8800459bed396bcad73d6beec120fc6a66a521

See more details on using hashes here.

File details

Details for the file picklescan-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: picklescan-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 21.8 kB
  • Tags: Python 3
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.9.25

File hashes

Hashes for picklescan-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 6db4527d7f6fb5f9e57dcc0e468810aba7e4f56775ead9b0e77643b508029089
MD5 9ea3244070059259f3ba4931e0b60fd8
BLAKE2b-256 361481e5f2a97d68b2956bd278725ad0c01e77f66bbbb27a43ba278645c165c3

See more details on using hashes here.

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

1.0.5

2 files

1.0.4

2 files

1.0.3

2 files

1.0.2

2 files

1.0.1

2 files

This release

1.0.0 This release

2 files

0.0.35

2 files

0.0.34

2 files

0.0.33

2 files

0.0.32

2 files

0.0.31

2 files

0.0.30

2 files

0.0.29

2 files

0.0.28

2 files

0.0.27

2 files

0.0.26

2 files

0.0.25

2 files

0.0.24

2 files

0.0.23

2 files

0.0.22

2 files

0.0.21

2 files

0.0.20

2 files

0.0.19

2 files

0.0.18

2 files

0.0.17

2 files

0.0.16

2 files

0.0.15

2 files

0.0.14

2 files

0.0.13

2 files

0.0.12

2 files

0.0.11

2 files

0.0.10

2 files

0.0.9

2 files

0.0.8

2 files

0.0.7

2 files

0.0.6

2 files

0.0.5

2 files

0.0.4

2 files

0.0.3

2 files

0.0.2

2 files

0.0.1

2 files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page