HUGGING Face’s platform was abused to deliver an Android remote access trojan, as reported by Bitdefender. The campaign began with users prompted to install a security app called TrustBastion, which acted as a dropper and then fetched an update while showing convincing Google Play and Android system update dialogs. After installation, the malware requested broad permissions and guided users to enable Accessibility Services to monitor actions, then exfiltrated screen content to a command-and-control server.
The malicious payload was hosted in a Hugging Face repository that Bitdefender says was roughly a month old when taken offline and had over 6,000 commits, with new payloads generated about every 15 minutes. When the repository went offline, the operators moved to a new link using different icons but the same underlying code, and Hugging Face subsequently took down the datasets serving the malware. The campaign also impersonated financial services such as Alipay and WeChat to harvest credentials. January 30, 2026. according to Bitdefender.