106
Arch Linux Users at Risk Again as AUR Hit by Another RAT
(news.itsfoss.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
106 points (97.3% liked)
Linux
56904 readers
548 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
The malicious packages were found and removed quite quickly. Also anyone who doesn't blindly install from the AUR would have seen a suspicious .lol url. I suppose that a genuine package using a .lol url isn't impossible, it's just very unlikely,
These attacks do demonstrate the strength and weakness of the AUR, that anyone can upload anything at any time. The same as flathub and the snap store. Treat all of them with appropriate caution.
Flatpak does have a concept of Verified Publisher. Many distros ship flatpak app store with default filter set to Verified Publisher only.
That sounds like a nice feature we could use for the Aur actually. We already have the
votesvalue, but some sort of verification body could help rescue the Aur's reputation.Also, if your distro doesn't do this, you can do it yourself. You can modify, for instance, KDE Discover's flathub repo to use the verified subset.