Security News > 2022 > May > Hacker of Python, PHP libraries: no "malicious activity" was intended
Yesterday, developers took notice of two hugely popular Python and PHP libraries, respectively, 'ctx' and 'PHPass' that had been hijacked, as first reported in the news by BleepingComputer.
According to the hacker, rather "Security researcher," this was a bug bounty exercise and no malicious activity was intended.
Today, the hacker of the widely used 'ctx' and 'PHPass' software projects has explained his rationale behind the hijack-that this was a proof-of-concept bug bounty exercise with no "Malicious activity" or harm intended.
The hijacker of these libraries is an Istanbul-based security researcher, Yunus Aydın aka SockPuppets, who has attested to the fact when approached by BleepingComputer.
Stealing secrets stored in environment variables such as passwords and API keys could very well cross the line, especially when hijacking popular libraries like 'ctx' and 'PHPass' that have been downloaded millions of times.
Some even took notice of Aydın's vanishing online presence after reports of the hijacked libraries picked up steam.