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

submitted 14 hours ago by cm0002@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev

9 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

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[–] Nebula@fedia.io 4 points 8 hours ago

Almost shat my pants a little, because I thought it was librewolf-bin.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 16 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

This is an increasing problem and I'm not sure how the open source community is going to deal with it. It's been a big problem with NPM packages and also Python libraries over the past five years. There's a bunch of malicious typo-squatting stuff in many package repositories (say you want libcurl but you type libcrul, congratulations it's probably there and it'll probably install libcurl for you and bring a fun friend along).

Now with AI slop code getting submitted, it's not really possible to check every new package upload. And who's going to volunteer for that work?

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 10 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Obviously, AI is going to also fix the problem 🤡

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 8 points 12 hours ago

"We have investigated ourselves and found no problem."

[–] Ptsf@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

Wikipedia does a half decent job, we should probably adopt a model of their policies for open source code intended to be shared in such ways.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Why is this not found in the official news for Archlinux? https://archlinux.org/news/

[–] pyssla@quokk.au 11 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Because, and I quote:

"Warning: AUR packages are user-produced content. These PKGBUILDs are completely unofficial and have not been thoroughly vetted. Any use of the provided files is at your own risk."

Thankfully, there's a mailing list that covers issues like these. Heck, OP's PSA was probably originally propagated from there.

[–] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 3 points 10 hours ago

I know its user produced content. But there are still rules that are enforced by Archteam and they host and link to it. And why not tell people about security issues? They could at least tell people in the news, so we can act accordingly. This is super disappointing. Is there any trustworthy RSS feed that covers this?

[–] Maiq@lemy.lol 3 points 13 hours ago

Thanks for the heads up!