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My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack

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Re: My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack

#2

Post by Fibonar »

Callum here, I was the developer that first discovered and reported the litellm vulnerability on Tuesday. I’m sharing the transcript of what it was like figuring out what was going on in real time, unedited with only minor redactions.

I didn’t need to recount my thought process after the fact. It’s the very same ones I wrote down to help Claude figure out what was happening.

I’m an ML engineer by trade, so having Claude walk me through exactly who to contact and a step by step guide of time-critical actions felt like a game-changer for non-security researchers.

I'm curious whether the security community thinks more non-specialists finding and reporting vulnerabilities like this is a net positive or a headache?

Re: My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack

#4

Post by Bullhorn9268 »

Fibonar wrote: post #2

Callum here, I was the developer that first discovered and reported the litellm vulnerability on Tuesday. I’m sharing the transcript of what it was like figuring out what was going on in real time, unedited with only minor redactions. I didn’t need to recount my thought process after the fact. It’s the very same ones I wrote down to help Claude figure out what was happening. I’m an ML engineer by trade, so having Cla…

Not a security researcher, but this is IMHO obviously positive that the other side of the arms race is also getting stronger, and I would argue it's stronger than on the bad guys' side, due to the best being somewhat responsible and adding guardrails.

I like the presentation <3.

Re: My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack

#5

Post by cedws »

GitHub, npm, PyPi, and other package registries should consider exposing a firehose to allow people to do realtime security analysis of events. There are definitely scanners that would have caught this attack immediately, they just need a way to be informed of updates.

Re: My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack

#6

Post by rgambee »

Fibonar wrote: post #2

Callum here, I was the developer that first discovered and reported the litellm vulnerability on Tuesday. I’m sharing the transcript of what it was like figuring out what was going on in real time, unedited with only minor redactions. I didn’t need to recount my thought process after the fact. It’s the very same ones I wrote down to help Claude figure out what was happening. I’m an ML engineer by trade, so having Cla…

I've heard stories lately of open source projects being inundated with vulnerability reports and PRs. But in this case, it seems like AI assistance was clearly a boon for root-causing and reporting this so quickly.

Re: My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack

#7

Post by dot_treo »

Fibonar wrote: post #2

Callum here, I was the developer that first discovered and reported the litellm vulnerability on Tuesday. I’m sharing the transcript of what it was like figuring out what was going on in real time, unedited with only minor redactions. I didn’t need to recount my thought process after the fact. It’s the very same ones I wrote down to help Claude figure out what was happening. I’m an ML engineer by trade, so having Cla…

Looks like we discovered it at essentially the same time, and in essentially the same way. If the pth file didn't trigger a fork-bomb like behavior, this might have stayed undiscoverd for quite a bit longer.

Good thinking on asking Claude to walk you through on who to contact. I had no idea how to contact anyone related to PyPI, so I started by shooting an email to the maintainers and posting it on Hacker News.

While I'm not part of the security community, I think everyone who finds something like this, should be able to report it. There is no point in gatekeeping the reporting of serious security vulnerabilities.

Re: My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack

#9

Post by Fibonar »

cedws wrote: post #5

GitHub, npm, PyPi, and other package registries should consider exposing a firehose to allow people to do realtime security analysis of events. There are definitely scanners that would have caught this attack immediately, they just need a way to be informed of updates.

So I've been thinking about this a lot since it happened. I've already added dependency cooldowns https://nesbitt.io/2026/03/04/package-managers-need-to-cool-... to every part of our monorepo. The obvious next thought is "am I just dumping the responsibility onto the next person along"? But as you point out it just needs to give automated scanners enough time to pick up on obvious signs like the .pth file in this case.

Re: My minute-by-minute response to the LiteLLM malware attack

#10

Post by gbrindisi »

Fibonar wrote: post #2

Callum here, I was the developer that first discovered and reported the litellm vulnerability on Tuesday. I’m sharing the transcript of what it was like figuring out what was going on in real time, unedited with only minor redactions. I didn’t need to recount my thought process after the fact. It’s the very same ones I wrote down to help Claude figure out what was happening. I’m an ML engineer by trade, so having Cla…

thanks for raising the alarm and sharing this, very insightful

(also beautifully presented!)

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