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.
Follow up
There are more packages with this malware found.
minecraft-crackedttf-ms-fonts-allvesktop-bin-patchedttf-all-ms-fonts
What to do
If you installed any of these packages, check your running processes for one named systemd-initd (this is the RAT).
The suspicious packages have a patch from this now-inaccessible Codeberg repo: https://codeberg.org/arch_lover3/browser-patch
The Arch maintainers have been informed of all this already and are investigating.
The AUR, key words “user repository” is a specific weak point. It doesn’t have the same level of oversight that the main arch repo has. Stick to main repos and verified flatpaks and it’s very unlikely that you’d ever be compromised.
Linux isn’t perfect, but it’s certainly better than windows where you just download executables willy nilly to install your software.
BTW python’s package index has roughly the same problem - but a far less technical, experienced and critical user base. NPM has this problem since years.
Expect these problems to rise with every percent more of new Linux users which never learned the difference between opening / viewing untrusted data, and running untrusted code, because Windows basically ignores this essential concept and Android tries to solve that with sandboxing each app.