Hugging Face malware campaign hijacks GPUs for crypto mining

Pluto Security found 31 malicious repositories across seven Hugging Face accounts posing as small Qwen2 test checkpoints. Abusing the trust_remote_code option, they install a cryptominer and reverse shell on GPU hosts; the flagship model was downloaded 28,412 times.

• 31 malicious repos across 7 Hugging Face accounts in two waves since September
• Flagship MENXIANGYU/qwen2-tiny reached 28,412 downloads by October 28
• Operator's wallet received roughly $5,000 in Pearl (PRL)
• Second-wave repos stayed live eight days after being reported