Australian Police Charge Two Over TeamPCP Credential Theft

Australian police charged two men linked to TeamPCP over malware hidden in open-source code that stole 500,000+ credentials from 1,000+ organizations.

Australian police have charged two men from Western Australia over a global cybercrime operation that allegedly hid malicious code in open-source software and used it to steal data from thousands of organisations.

“Two West Australian men have been charged following a joint investigation between the AFP and Western Australia Police Force (WAPF), working in parallel with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), into a sophisticated cybercrime syndicate that allegedly created malicious open-source software to rob thousands of global businesses.” states AFP. “The AFP charged the men yesterday (26 August, 2026) with a combined total of 14 offences after executing search warrants in Perth with WAPF, and the assistance of the FBI.”

The Australian Federal Police, the Western Australia Police Force and the FBI executed search warrants in Perth on 26 August 2026 and arrested a 21-year-old from Cottesloe and a 23-year-old from Mandurah. They face a combined total of 14 charges covering unauthorised data modification, possession and supply of data for computer offences, and dealing with proceeds of crime.

Police say the pair were principal participants in a syndicate known as TeamPCP, which allegedly inserted malicious code into software hosted on public repositories and then let other developers pull it in without knowing. Infected components ended up in systems across government, academia and the private sector, giving the group a way to steal credentials and other sensitive material at scale.

“Parallel investigations started in April, 2026, after the AFP and FBI received information from multiple cyber threat assessment companies regarding a syndicate that allegedly inserted malicious code into software available on an open-source repository, which was then unwittingly used by other developers.” continues AFP. “Police will allege infected software was then distributed into computer systems at other organisations across government, academia and the private sector. The software allegedly enabled the syndicate to infiltrate those organisations to steal or harvest sensitive data, including user credentials and authentication materials.”

The numbers are not small. Investigators estimate the malicious code potentially compromised more than 1,000 organisations worldwide, enabling the theft of over 500,000 credentials and the exfiltration of at least 300 gigabytes of data. Remediation costs so far run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

TeamPCP is behind multiple supply chain attacks, in the past, they targeted PyPI packages and NPM repositories, and most recently the “Mini Shai-Hulud” campaign also caught two OpenAI employees. The pattern is consistent: go after the tools developers trust, poison the supply chain, and let the downstream damage multiply.

The confirmed list of modified tools includes Trivy, a widely used container vulnerability scanner; KICS, a static analysis tool for infrastructure-as-code; LiteLLM, a popular library for routing requests across AI model APIs; and the Telnyx Python SDK.

These aren’t niche utilities. They’re commonly integrated into enterprise CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure workflows, and security scanning processes. Hitting them means hitting a large number of organizations simultaneously through a single poisoned update.

The group also deployed four distinct malware families. CanisterWorm harvested cloud access tokens, credentials, and API keys for AWS, GCP, and Azure. SANDCLOCK extracted AWS credentials, Kubernetes ServiceAccount tokens, local environment variables, and cryptocurrency wallet data. Mini Shai-Hulud was a self-replicating worm designed to spread across both npm and PyPI registries. Miasma was a variant of Mini Shai-Hulud that propagated across those same open-source registries while harvesting credentials and poisoning configuration files.

The worm component is the part that deserves particular attention. Mini Shai-Hulud and its Miasma variant didn’t just infect the initial target and stop. They spread across open-source package registries autonomously, harvesting credentials and poisoning configuration files as they went. The FBI confirmed two GitHub repository names used for exfiltration: tpcp-docs and docs-tpcp. If either of those repository names appears in your GitHub organization, the worm created it using stolen credentials.

TeamPCP’s method was straightforward and effective: inject malicious code into legitimate software packages, push the trojanized versions through normal distribution channels, and wait for CI/CD pipelines to pull them in automatically. The modified tools installed credential-stealing malware and persistent backdoors without any visible sign that anything had changed.

“These men are allegedly members of the cybercriminal group TeamPCP, whose malicious code potentially compromised more than a thousand organizations worldwide,” Assistant Director Leatherman said.

“We are proud to work with the Australian Federal Police and the Western Australia Police Force to impose cost on criminal actors and combat the growing threat of software supply-chain attacks.”

The charges show how serious the alleged operation was. The 21-year-old faces several charges, including changing data without authorization, possessing and supplying data for computer crimes, failing to comply with a production order, and handling at least A$100,000 in criminal proceeds. The 23-year-old faces similar hacking charges, with maximum penalties ranging from three to 20 years.

Police seized electronic devices and other items from properties in Cottesloe, Hamilton Hill and Mandurah. Investigators are now examining a large amount of data and have not ruled out further arrests or charges.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, newsletter)