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
The higher the percentage of Linux usage the more likely it is that these cases will occur. Most people use Arch because of the aur repository without reading the Pkgbuilds and installing random programs from that repository that give root access to the system. Aur is a security hole in Arch and should only be used for trusted sources and programs that are widely used by the community and yet it is still a security hole for a system. When analysing this issue years ago I understood that it is better for me to have a system with a strong security configuration done by experts in the field. For me a distribution has to have these basic security tools to be considered a secure distribution: secure-boot, selinux and firewall. And along with these tools, do not install anything from external repositories. Only by fulfilling these requirements can we consider that we have a security-enforced linux distribution.
As a package maintainer in AUR, I never understood the awe with it. You’re literally executing random shell scripts by strangers as root. It’s the same thing as
curl | sudo bashexcept its a lot easier to hide malicious things.Most people claim they read the PKGBUILD (which I don’t believe tbh) but I bet they don’t read
<package>.installscripts which don’t have to be explicitly mentioned in the PKGBUILD if it shares the same name as the package.I could push whatever I want to my package and hundreds of people will pick it up. Since I’m not a script kiddie like this guy, I could hide it much better too.
I guess what I’m saying is, don’t execute unvetted bash scripts as root kids. Open source doesn’t mean people verify the code. It just means they can.
<package>.install scripts which don’t have to be explicitly mentioned in the PKGBUILD if it shares the same name as the package.
Can you show a reproducible example of this? I couldn’t get a <package>.install included in a test package I made without explicitly adding it as
install=<package>.install.Most people claim they read the PKGBUILD (which I don’t believe tbh)
If you don’t trust people to read PKGBUILD’s I’m curious which form of software installation (outside of official repositories) you find safe.
Can you show a reproducible example of this? I couldn’t get a <package>.install included in a test package I made without explicitly adding it as install=<package>.install.
I might be misremembering that detail or it might’ve changed since the last time I wrote a fresh PKGBUILD. Sorry I don’t have any examples because my project does not use an install script.
If you don’t trust people to read PKGBUILD’s I’m curious which form of software installation (outside of official repositories) you find safe.
My preference goes Arch repos -> official aur packages that I read the manifests of -> verified flatpaks that I read the manifests of -> Nix -> compile myself
the love of the aur is the lack of friction to distribute and install software. these security breaches are meh they’re found and resolved. it’d be nice if we sandboxed applications more.
Yeah good luck sandboxing a service running as root at boot. Maybe look at the malware next time before trying to call it meh?
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.
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.
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.
RAT
?
