I use Debian btw
Thank god they’re only niche packages, right?
This attack is ongoing. Don’t let your guard down on AUR PKGBUILDs.
I’ve seen AUR warned against often, also by Arch team members.
I never thought it was a huge deal, but apparently anything that can be attacked will be attacked nowadays.This is what happens when a shit load of packages that just sit around basically unmaintained are allowed to sit around.
Maybe injecting the infections made it look like they were maintained? 😋
I start to wonder if we need something sitting between extra and aur, few more trusted maintainers and well secured update process that’s more than the aur Wild West
Also, some sort of yay hook to do some scanning for suspicious diffs and warning or skipping those packages…
I don’t want / need a system where I can blindly update everything, but something to help me avoid having to visually check every package diff would be nice
Yes that would be nice, but I’m not sure that is possible.
Their first option is possible for sure. Just something like the AUR, but that you need a proven record (either on the AUR or on something else) to post. That shouldn’t be too hard.
I feel like this could be a use for LLMs that isn’t slop. It’s not going to catch everything of course but I imagine it would be a whole lot better than nothing
https://aur.archlinux.org/ warns you about it
Yeah if your machine can be added to a botnet then it will be. Resistance is futile, we are Borg style.
I got a notification about a package that changed the maintainer that looks rather suspicious to me… So i would still be careful…
https://aur.archlinux.org/account/svantehedlund
That user doesn’t seem to be blocked… So there might still be more going on.
Very normal looking. /s
A couple of weeks ago, some dingbat of an AUR admin orphaned a package of mine, ignoring the comment I left on it and my post to the mailing list.
Even though this package, to my knowledge, didn’t end up being attacked, I wonder if this was a potential precursor to the recent attack…
To answer your question, generally yes the package maintainer is the one who maintains the package for the current version of the distro, even if upstream is unchanged. If a package is no longer compatible and no one is making it compatible, then yes it’s unmaintained and should be removed.
It wasn’t removed, it was marked as orphaned, which means anyone can take over and mess with it, lowering the bar for supply chain attacks.
If another user had said “I can take care of this long-term, gimme”, I’d had handed it over. Instead, some self-important dingbat with too many privileges decided to mass-mark all packages with an “outdated” flag beyond a certain age as orphaned, then ignored my mailing list post.
For what it’s worth, a distro package maintainer’s inability to update a package to a newer upstream version does not necessarily lead to a package being removed. Debian and Ubuntu kept shipping an ancient version of
freetdssometime in the mid-2010s and the package maintainer was incommunicado.
Does anyone know if the NixOS packages are safer from these types of attacks? As far as I know many packages are missing maintainers.
Yesterday that was 400 packages, now it’s 1500.
Tomorrow 3000 ?
I use devuan btw
“I use arch btw” lmao
I use AUR BTW!
Arch and AUR are not really the same. To be fair AUR is the fanfiction version that fits inside the story. But you have to purposely work to use it. So it’s not Arch that was compromised.
IsIs it really all that difficult to use these popular coding and browsing tools such as Heroic Launcher, Visual Studio Code and Brave within Arch Linuxes like CachyOS?
Last time I touched an Archy Linux, I don’t recall it being difficult for some of the things on that list. And it still comes from a central store of apps reminiscent of the Microsoft Store for example…
To use the AUR, you have to install a AUR Helper https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_helpers
They are not just “click and go”. They require a dedicated effort. AND when you’re done, using them requires a specific command. So in short, it’s not pacman and it’s not Arch, the AUR is a special choice
Haven’t seen an arch fuckup like this since they switched to signed packages.
This is not ArchLinux’ fuckup. The AUR’s popularity exploded after certain Arch-based distros (and software) decided to treat the AUR as an additional software repository, even part of package management, and automate the process of installation. Which also slows the process of discovering the malware. And makes panicky users wave their arms.
May I remind everyone of Arch core principles and statements wrt AUR - several quotes from their wiki:
Whereas many GNU/Linux distributions attempt to be more user-friendly, Arch Linux has always been, and shall always remain user-centric:
- The distribution is intended to fill the needs of those contributing to it, rather than trying to appeal to as many users as possible.
- It is targeted at the proficient GNU/Linux user, or anyone with a do-it-yourself attitude who is willing to read the documentation, and solve their own problems.
The Arch User Repository (AUR) is a community-driven repository for Arch Linux users. It contains package descriptions (PKGBUILDs) that allow you to compile a package from source with makepkg and then install it via pacman.
Note how the crucial PKGBUILD is mentioned in the first sentence, and dozens of times in the article that follows.
Warning
AUR helpers are not supported by Arch Linux. You should become familiar with the manual build process in order to be prepared to troubleshoot problems.The AUR even includes PGP signing; not perfect, but a useful additional step. But, alas, many AUR helpers include “skip PGP check”.
Archlinux devs, maintainers and users have been saying this for over a decade, and warning against using the AUR in such ways. But short of shutting the whole thing down, what can they do? The few things that can reasonably be done I’m sure are being implemented right now.
Warning AUR helpers are not supported by Arch Linux. You should become familiar with the manual build process in order to be prepared to troubleshoot problems.
Nothing in that warning is related to security
Ah now I read this far. Unfortunate, if easy to use Archy distros are un-Archy due to this political dispute that goes undisclosed.
It doesn’t sound like their victims are panicky users, though. Sounds like their normal computer users, the kind of person who would typically want use Windows instead. The kind of people who are, and should be safe to remain, totally agnostic to these internal political divides.
“Political”?! 🤪
As in “office politics” or “workplace politics,” yes
I wouldn’t really categorise it as a fuckup. These are unofficial packages from the AUR. You should trust them as much as random install scripts from a no-name website or git repo.
It’s no arch fuckup. The AUR is not an arch linux redponsibility and has always been “untrusted” - you should always verify what you’re downloading and building.
Problem is that bazzite and cachy are arch-based, but targeted at a group of people that arch doesn’t target. So you have users that just blindly download scripts from the AUR without doing proper verification.
This is more the fault of those distros and AUR helpers than arch.
I thought bazzite was based on an atomic version of fedora?
Yep. There’s no AUR for bazzite since it’s based on fedora immutable, unless I’m mistaken and there’s a way to do so anyway somehow. Still, bazzite and AUR do not go hand in hand AFAIK as it’s meant to be an immutable system.
