Arch Linux

8922 readers

14 users here now

The beloved lightweight distro

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

k_o_t@lemmy.ml

109

Compromised Arch User Repository (AUR) Packages, installing RAT malware (lists.archlinux.org)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz to c/archlinux@lemmy.ml

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

On the 16th of July, at around 8pm UTC+2, a malicious AUR package was uploaded to the AUR. Two other malicious packages were uploaded by the same user a few hours later. These packages were installing a script coming from the same GitHub repository that was identified as a Remote Access Trojan (RAT).

The affected malicious packages are:

librewolf-fix-bin
firefox-patch-bin
zen-browser-patched-bin

The Arch Linux team addressed the issue as soon as they became aware of the situation. As of today, 18th of July, at around 6pm UTC+2, the offending packages have been deleted from the AUR.

We strongly encourage users that may have installed one of these packages to remove them from their system and to take the necessary measures in order to ensure they were not compromised.

According to the gamingonlinux discord, the following packages are also suspected to be compromised:

https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/minecraft-cracked/

https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/ttf-ms-fonts-all/

https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/vesktop-bin-patched/

https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/ttf-all-ms-fonts/

If you have any of these packages installed, immediately delete it and check your system processes for a process called systemd-initd (this is the RAT).

Here is an analysis of the malicious payload: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/d9f0df8da6d66aaae024bdca26a228481049595279595e96d5ec615392430d67

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You asked why people like the AUR and I informed you. not everything is a crisis. peoples computers get compromised every single day. (and yes it sucks for them)

Now you may want to get into a pissing contest over how easy it is to containerize installations on linux today, I personally have no interest in educating peanut gallery commentators.

the basics are: you essentially can't do anything about the applications themselves but securing the installation process is straight forward these days. our package managers are just not funded so the work is slow as shit.

now go outside and touch some grass for everyone's sake.

[–] slackness@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Starts with:

it’d be nice if we sandboxed applications more.

Turns into:

you essentially can’t do anything about the applications themselves

Not only contradicting with themselves but are also wrong in both cases. I don't know who tf is upvoting this pile of unintelligable crap.

but securing the installation process is straight forward these days.

No.

[–] jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

lol. child. we cant directly do anything if the program itself is compromised outside of sandboxing it. which we do have wrappers for. in fact we have a ton of them now. but sandboxing at the system level is more complicated than at the user level. because either you need to whitelist every possible system access and have it approved or deal with the occassional security issue as this post is about. one is much easier than the other.

but sandboxing the installation process is fairly easy since thats in your package manager. basically just wrap up a bash implementation in a wasi runtime and restrict it and you're golden, you'll have blocked network and filesystem access. all the problems with the installation scripts can be directly controlled via that mechanism.

we just dont do it because its a lot of work with minimal benefit and no one is paying for it to be done.

just because you dont know what the solution space is doesnt mean others dont.

again go touch some grass. you clearly need to.