- cross-posted to:
- linux@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- linux@sopuli.xyz
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They should have some sort of static code scanners on the repos at rest at this point that look for certain patterns and issue warnings.
Since this installed a malicious dependency from NPM (and later with bunjs) in the pre install script, it would need at least complex correlation to catch. Maybe building and installing all AUR packages, which would cost far too much for the Arch team.
Individually and automatically scanning only the PKGBUILDs (the stuff actually on the AUR) would likely not have caught this.
That doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to run a basic scan over every change, but it wouldn’t magically “fix” aur malware.
It’s enough to build a pattern match and scan against it being elsewhere. Surely they did at least much to find all these packages with malware.
Currently you can use https://github.com/lenucksi/aur-malware-check to do a check if you’re infected. My main server was safe, still haven’t tested on my wayland machine though, I went yolo with that one. No important keys at least are there.
does a linux mint-using idiot need to worry about this, hypothetically speaking?
This pertains to Arch’s AUR (Arch User Repository). On Mint, nothing you do will interact with the AUR, so you’re perfectly fine.
thank you!
Generally not. The AUR stands for Archlinux User Repository. It’s their repo. Unless added as a source manually, you will never see a package from it.
thank you!
These guys are slacking! Didn’t they read the RFC for this?
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3514/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit
Amateurs!
Definitely a few unfortunate victims to stuff like
libyamiif using some sort of shell autocomplete. Few others would likely catch younger people, eg the implied apk side channel deployment packages.how did this happen? the linked thread show people identifying the infected packages and cleaning them up but no word about how it happened or how to prevent it.
I think it was essentially orphaned stuff that got “picked up” by a “new maintainer” and that’s how it happened.
oh I saw “clang” in the list of packages and got worried
You’re only affected if you use the AUR. As far as I understand it, the core packages themselves are fine, so this is more of a MitM attack, where somebody compromised the package download streams
This is not a MitM attack.
How is it not? They didn’t take over the core projects, they took over the midstream distribution.
A MitM attack defines the attack technique, not the target. It’s when the target wants to connect to something but it connects through you first, and you forward while collecting/altering data. My question was about the attack used. But yeah, a mass takeover of everything orphaned would do it.
O deer
