PCPJack hijacks cloud, steals credentials after erasing TeamPCP

Security researchers have uncovered PCPJack, a credential theft framework that “worms across exposed cloud infrastructure and removes artifacts associated with TeamPCP,” according to SentinelOne senior threat researcher, Alex Delamotte.

The campaign targets victims of the notorious cybercrime group TeamPCP, which has been linked to major open source supply chain attacks this year, including one that compromised the GitHub Actions for Aqua Security’s Trivy vulnerability scanner to deliver infostealer malware to countless downstream users including LiteLLM.

After removing all TeamPCP artifacts, PCPJack deploys code designed to replicate through the victim’s cloud systems, stealing credentials from Docker, Kubernetes, Redis, MongoDB, RayML, and vulnerable web applications, the SentinelLABS report noted.

Although programmed to steal cryptocurrency credentials, it lacks crypto-mining functionality, with Delamotte noting that “this campaign does not, and it deliberately removes the miner functions associated with TeamPCP.” Mitigations urged include using credential vaults, ensuring MFA for service accounts, enforcing IMDSV2 in AWS, allow‑listing from approved S3 resources, and applying the principle of least privilege to Kubernetes service accounts.