• duncesplayed@lemmy.oneEnglish
    521·
    1 year ago

    This is the major reason why maintainers matter. Any method of software distribution that removes the maintainer is absolutely guaranteed to have malware. (Or if you don’t consider 99% software on Google Play Store the App Store to be “malware”, it’s at the very least hostile to and exploitative of users). We need package maintainers.

    • wiki_me@lemmy.mlEnglish
      151·
      1 year ago

      The root of the problem i think is that the store is closed source, i don’t think you will find a lot of people willing to work for a closed source store for some for profit company.

  • inspxtr@lemmy.world
    321·
    1 year ago

    As much as I despise snap, this instance bring some questions into how other popular cross-linux platform app stores like flathub and nix-channels/packages provide guardrails against malwares.

    I’m aware flathub has a “verified” checks for packages from the same maintainers/developers, but I’m unsure about nix-channels. Even then, flathub packages are not reviewed by anyone, are they?

    • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
      14·
      1 year ago

      Nixpkgs submissions work through GitHub PRs which have to be reviewed, and packages usually build from source (or download binaries from the official site if no source is available, and verifying it against a checksum). It’s a much safer model since every user has a reproducible script to build the binary, especially if Flathub doesn’t have any reviews as you say.

    • Sparking@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Wouldn’t it go noticed quickly if a super popular flatpak distribution app is compromised? I love flatpacks for my 5 desktop apps that I actually use everyday, but it is definitely not suitable for general apps I install on a whim.

  • Amy :3@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    30·
    1 year ago

    As a snap package maintainer i find it weird that there weren’t any guardrails in place to avoid situations like this, considering that the main snap consumer are Ubuntu users and Ubuntu is from canonical.

    I guess I should’ve set my expectations a bit lower

      • Amy :3@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        It’s not that they don’t work better in conjunction, it’s canonical’s lack of moderation in the snapcraft store.

        This could’ve avoided day one by adding a manual review process (like what they are temporarily doing right now)

        I don’t know how flathub handles new package submissions, but I think that they definitely need to have a process similar to what other distros have in place for native packages (heck, even Ubuntu’s own repos have a review process)

    • garam@lemmy.my.idEnglish
      84·
      1 year ago

      you confuse canonical with fedora or rhel standard… which… is sad… but at least flatpak is the savior in the end. haha…

      • Amy :3@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, my bad 😅

        I’ve forgotten that Canonical is not like Fedora or Red Hat

        …but at least flatpak is the savior in the end.

        Flatpak definitely has a potential, I use them daily. Haven’t had any issues so far

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    18·
    1 year ago

    Wooow Ubuntu didnt expect that huh…

    Having a proprietary store ran by a single Company has nothing to do with Linuxes security model

  • GustavoM@lemmy.worldEnglish
    192·
    1 year ago

    What do we learned today, kids?

    No user control = more malicious possibilities of infecting/screwing up your PC.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    15·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Stemming from reports of several fake crypto apps appearing in Canonical’s Snap Store that aimed to steal user funds, temporary restrictions have been put in place while Canonical investigates the security matter.

    A temporary manual review requirement has also been put in place on new Snap registrations.

    This manual review is intended to thwart bad actors from registering names of legitimate applications (or at least legitimate sounding names) and using that as an avenue for pushing malicious Snaps to users.

    "If you try to register a new snap while the requirement is active, you will be prompted to “request reserved name”.

    Upon a successful manual review from the Snap Store staff, the name will be registered.

    We want to thoroughly investigate this incident without introducing any noise into the system, and more importantly, we want to make sure our users have a safe and trusted experience with the Snap Store.

    The original article contains 240 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 38%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • danielfgom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    I wonder if there is a way to spot this, even when vetting an app? Do the Maintainers of most distros manually read the code to discover whether an app is malware? Or do they have automated tools like opensuse’s testing tools which can detect malware. (Not sure if opensuse’s tool can test for malware or only app functionality).

    Either way we need to have an automated programme that can checks all apps. It’s simply too much for humans given the massive number of apps, libraries etc.

    • Aux@lemmy.world
      8·
      1 year ago

      No one is really doing anything. Repos have been poisoned multiple times over the decades, even original source code repos of big projects have been poisoned. If you don’t check the end binary on your system yourself, you’re at risk.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Good thing I can just install applications from apt instead…

    user@pc:~$: sudo apt install app
The following additional packages will be installed:
    snapd

    …oh.