PCPJack Credential Stealer Exploits 5 CVEs to Spread Worm-Like Across Cloud Systems

Summary

PCPJack is a new credential theft framework targeting exposed cloud infrastructure that harvests credentials from cloud, container, and developer services, then spreads laterally by exploiting five known CVEs. The malware uses Python-based modules for reconnaissance, lateral movement, and credential exfiltration via Telegram C2, while actively removing TeamPCP artifacts from compromised environments. Researchers assess PCPJack may be operated by a former TeamPCP member given significant targeting overlaps and shared tradecraft.

Full text

PCPJack Credential Stealer Exploits 5 CVEs to Spread Worm-Like Across Cloud Systems Ravie LakshmananMay 07, 2026Threat Intelligence / Cloud Security Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new credential theft framework dubbed PCPJack that targets exposed cloud infrastructure and ousts any artifacts linked to TeamPCP from the environments. "The toolset harvests credentials from cloud, container, developer, productivity, and financial services, then exfiltrates the data through attacker-controlled infrastructure while attempting to spread to additional hosts," SentinelOne security researcher Alex Delamotte said in a report published today. PCPJack is specifically designed to target cloud services like Docker, Kubernetes, Redis, MongoDB, RayML, and vulnerable web applications, allowing the operators to spread in a worm-like fashion, aswell as move laterally within the compromised networks. It's assessed that the end goal of the cloud attack campaign is to generate illicit revenue for the threat actors through credential theft, fraud, spam, extortion, or resale of stolen access. The What makes this activity notable is that it shares significant targeting overlaps with TeamPCP, a threat actor that rose to prominence late last year by exploiting known security vulnerabilities (e.g., React2Shell) and misconfigurations in cloud services to enlist the endpoints in an ever-expanding network for conducting data theft and other post-exploitation actions. At the same time, PCPJack lacks a cryptocurrency mining component, unlike TeamPCP. While it's not known why this obvious monetization strategy was not adopted, the similarities between the two clusters indicate that PCPJack could be the work of a former member of TeamPCP who is familiar with the group's tradecraft. The starting point of the attack is a bootstrap shell script that's used to prepare the environment – such as configuring the payload host – and download next-stage tooling, while simultaneously taking steps to infect its own infrastructure, terminate and remove processes or artifacts that are associated with TeamPCP, install Python, establish persistence, download six Python scripts, launch the orchestration script, and remove itself. The six Python payloads are as follows - worm.py (written to disk as monitor.py), the main orchestrator that launches the purpose-built modules, conducts local credential theft, propagates the toolset to other hosts by exploiting known flaws (CVE-2025-55182, CVE-2025-29927, CVE-2026-1357, CVE-2025-9501, and CVE-2025-48703), and uses Telegram for command-and-control (C2) parser.py (utils.py), to handle credential extraction to categorize stolen keys and secrets lateral.py (_lat.py), to facilitate reconnaissance, harvest secrets, and enable lateral movement across SSH, Kubernetes, Docker, Redis, RayML, and MongoDB services crypto_util.py (_cu.py), to encrypt credentials before exfiltration to the attacker's Telegram channel cloud_ranges.py (_cr.py), to collect IP address ranges assigned to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Cloudflare, Cloudfront, and Fastly, and refresh the data every 24 hours cloud_scan.py (_csc.py), to run cloud port scanning for external propagation via Docker, Kubernetes, MongoDB, RayML, or Redis services Propagation targets for the orchestrator script come from parquet files that the worm pulls directly from Common Crawl, a non-profit that crawls the web and provides its archives and datasets to the public at no extra cost. "When exfiltrating system information and credentials, the PCPJack operator even collects success metrics on whether TeamPCP has been evicted from targeted environments in a 'PCP replaced' field sent to the C2," Delamotte said. This "implies a direct focus on the threat actor's activities rather than pure cloud attack opportunism." Further analysis of the threat actor's infrastructure has uncovered another shell script ("check.sh") that detects the CPU architecture and fetches the appropriate Sliver binary. It also scans Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) endpoints, Kubernetes service accounts, and Docker instances for credentials associated with Anthropic, Digital Ocean, Discord, Google API, Grafana Cloud, HashiCorp Vault, OnePassword, and OpenAI, and transmits them to an external server. "Overall, the two toolsets are well developed and indicate that the owner values making code as a modular framework, despite some redundancies in behavior," SentinelOne said. "This campaign does not [deploy miners], and it deliberately removes the miner functions associated with TeamPCP. Despite that, this actor has well-defined scopes for extracting cryptocurrency credentials." Found this article interesting? Follow us on Google News, Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post. SHARE     Tweet Share Share Share SHARE  Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud security, cybersecurity, data exfiltration, Docker, Kubernetes, Malware, Threat Intelligence ⚡ Top Stories This Week Ollama Out-of-Bounds Read Vulnerability Allows Remote Process Memory Leak Four OpenClaw Flaws Enable Data Theft, Privilege Escalation, and Persistence On-Prem Microsoft Exchange Server CVE-2026-42897 Exploited via Crafted Email Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller Auth Bypass Actively Exploited to Gain Admin Access ThreatsDay Bulletin: PAN-OS RCE, Mythos cURL Bug, AI Tokenizer Attacks, and 10+ Stories Windows Zero-Days Expose BitLocker Bypasses And CTFMON Privilege Escalation New Fragnesia Linux Kernel LPE Grants Root Access via Page Cache Corruption 18-Year-Old NGINX Rewrite Module Flaw Enables Unauthenticated RCE Microsoft's MDASH AI System Finds 16 Windows Flaws Fixed in Patch Tuesday [Webinar] How Modern Attack Paths Cross Code, Pipelines, and Cloud Microsoft Patches 138 Vulnerabilities, Including DNS and Netlogon RCE Flaws New Exim BDAT Vulnerability Exposes GnuTLS Builds to Potential Code Execution Mini Shai-Hulud Worm Compromises TanStack, Mistral AI, Guardrails AI and More Packages cPanel CVE-2026-41940 Under Active Exploitation to Deploy Filemanager Backdoor ⚡ Weekly Recap: Linux Rootkit, macOS Crypto Stealer, WebSocket Skimmers and More Hackers Used AI to Develop First Known Zero-Day 2FA Bypass for Mass Exploitation ⭐ Featured Resources [Webinar] Learn How to Handle Critical SOC Alerts With AI Support Identify Internal Attack Surfaces More Efficiently With a Free Assessment [eBook] Get the 3-Number SOC Diagnostic to Reduce Queue Risk [Guide] Stop Email Fraud Before It Turns Into Ransomware Damage

Indicators of Compromise

• cve — CVE-2025-55182
• cve — CVE-2025-29927
• cve — CVE-2026-1357
• cve — CVE-2025-9501
• cve — CVE-2025-48703
• malware — PCPJack
• malware — TeamPCP

Entities