A fake OpenAI codebase was removed from Hugging Face after topping the trending charts; it contained data-stealing programs.

CoinFeed reported on May 13th that, according to Decrypt, a fake repository posing as an OpenAI privacy filter topped the trending charts on Hugging Face, garnering approximately 244,000 downloads and 667 likes within 18 hours before being taken down. Security firm HiddenLayer discovered that 657 of the likes came from bot accounts. This malicious repository contained a six-stage data theft program: disabling security checks via a loader.py script, silently executing PowerShell to download the final payload written in Rust, and running it with SYSTEM privileges. The malware stole passwords, encrypted wallet mnemonic phrases, SSH keys, FTP credentials, and Discord tokens from Chrome and Firefox, sending screenshots to the attacker's server, and simultaneously checking the virtual machine environment to evade analysis.