this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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174
Malicious KDE theme can wipe out all your data (www.reddit.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
39 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/13397700

Malicious KDE theme can wipe out all your data

Or is it just buggy?

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[–] node815 44 points 9 months ago (2 children)

For those that don't want to go back to the Dark side (Reddit), the post referenced a theme (Grey Layout global theme) which got KDE Dev's involved who in reaction removed the listing from the store.

In short - the theme ran code to run a rm -rf on the user's drive which wiped everything during install. Aside from backing up your data religiously, be sure to inspect the code instead of blindly installing for now. KDE Dev's said they will need to do better so I expect some changes are afoot to provide better security.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Why can a theme execute code??

edit: it was the package that did it?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Ooh! Thanks for this! I had no idea it existed.

[–] mvirts 39 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Great time to mention tools like testdisk that can easily recover data that has been recently deleted on common filesystems.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Btrfs.

[–] nicoweio 7 points 9 months ago

Though nothing can replace a proper backup

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago

A ton of extensions are executing scripts, but this is generally behind a warning.

This REALLY has to change guys, and for that the getnewstuff backend must become better.

For example Dolphin extensions are still downloaded to some random download location that is not actually used.

And the packaging of addons is extremely random too.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

*Malicious script inside everywhere can wipe out all your data

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

except sandboxed, a theme should not have unrestricted user file system access.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Seems like a ~~blessing ~~ glaring kde bug, I mean how is it possible? Why a theme needs to be able to execute shell commands?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Themes are very powerful beings in KDE. they can install SDDM themes and scripts, they can set Kvantum themes, custom parameters for other parts of the system etc.

You can't really do that shit without scripting

[–] dinckelman 13 points 9 months ago

It’s really not uncommon for a lot of themes to package an installer script, in case they have multiple versions, or multiple colors bundled. Realistically, they should just each have their own store page, but it’s a colossal pain in the ass. The Catppuccin global theme, for example, has 16 color variants, 2 decoration variants each, and then also a version with no splash. The whitesur theme is similar.

I do agree though that if this is going to continue to exist, it should not have permissions it has today

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

We really need better sandboxing for the desktop. I see why scripting can useful for themes, but why the heck would they have so much fs access?

[–] Samueru 10 points 9 months ago

It is a bug, and not only that, it is KDE6 related lmao. It's the steam bug again!

[–] dr_jekell 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)

This is why you back up your data!

I use both Timeshift and Lucky Backup.

Timeshift is setup to back up the entire OS and user data and fire off a backup when updating (onto an internal drive).

Lucky Backup has been setup to do a one way sync of my user folders (doc's, download, pictures, videos etc) onto an external drive.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Stupid question maybe, but would your backups even be safe? Sure, it was mentioned that you had to enter your sudo password, but let's say you did that because you are careless, "rm -rf" would wipe all connected and mounted drives as well, so your backups would be gone, wouldn't they? Or does Timeshift mount and unmount on demand? If so, what would happen if you ran "rm -rf" while a backup is being saved?! It seems to me that a simple "make backups" isn't enough here.

[–] kylian0087 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I do not know much about Timeshift and Lucky backup. But a proper backup is not a on the same system even if it is a second drive internally. For some quick file recovery after deleting things you shouldn't have it is fine. A proper backup should be a separate system and ideally 2 systems one externally but this is overkill for most folks. With a separate system you can setup automated backups and disaster recovery. if you are scared the backup system can get compromised from the main system. you can set things up in such a way that the backup works in pull mode and the main system being backed up has no access to the backup system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Not everyone can have 2 computers for all kinds of reasons.

Everyone do you best. Prioritize your data and take stronger precautions for the most important.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

No one says you need to have 2 computers, a second external drive is fine.

[–] kylian0087 1 points 9 months ago

A separate computer/server might be the best but their are many ways. Cloud storage is one of the many options that can be used as well.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

This is why you shouldnt allow anything to execute arbitrary code without permission

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Lucky Backup is a fantastic piece of software. It is the perfect amount of GUI to spread over rsync.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

i can do that too with --no-preserve-root but you don't see me bragging.