Open-OSS/privacy-filter Model Discovered as Malware – Security Alert
Delete the Open‑OSS/privacy‑filter model from your environment, report the malicious code to Hugging Face and Microsoft, and avoid using it.
Delete the Open‑OSS/privacy‑filter model from your environment, report the malicious code to Hugging Face and Microsoft, and avoid using it.
Summary
A user discovered that the Hugging Face model Open-OSS/privacy-filter contains a malicious loader.py that decodes a base64 string pointing to https://jsonkeeper.com/b/AVNNE. The payload is a PowerShell script that downloads update.bat from https://api.eth-fastscan.org/update.bat, writes it to the temp folder, and launches cmd.exe to execute the batch file, effectively installing a Windows infostealer. The malicious code is a Windows‑only dropper that also downloads an EXE via Task Scheduler. The real OpenAI privacy‑filter model resides at https://huggingface.co/openai/privacy-filter and is safe. The author warns developers to avoid using the Open-OSS version and reports the repository to Hugging Face and Microsoft. The malicious model was posted on Hugging Face and can be downloaded by anyone, posing a security risk. The article serves as a security alert for the community.
Key changes
- The loader.py decodes a base64 string that resolves to https://jsonkeeper.com/b/AVNNE.
- The payload is a PowerShell script that downloads update.bat from https://api.eth-fastscan.org/update.bat.
- The script writes the batch file to %TEMP% and launches cmd.exe to execute it.
- The malicious code installs a Windows infostealer via Task Scheduler.
- The real OpenAI privacy‑filter model is at https://huggingface.co/openai/privacy-filter.
- The malicious model was posted on Hugging Face and can be downloaded by anyone.
- The author reports the repository to Hugging Face and Microsoft.
- The model is a Windows‑only dropper that downloads an EXE and runs it via Task Scheduler.