this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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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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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

FYI for whoever is reading this: it wasn't just a theme, but a Global Theme: it can include a Plasma Style, a color scheme, an icon theme, a panel layout template, an SDDM theme, wallpapers and widgets. Widgets are capable of running arbitrary code, just like GNOME extensions.

Here's the response article from one of our main developers: http://blog.davidedmundson.co.uk/blog/kde-store-content/

In the short term we need to communicate clearly what security expectations Plasma users should have for extensions they download into their desktops.

We need to improve the balance of accessing third party content that allows creators to share and have users to get this content easily, with enough speed-bumps and checks that everyone knows what risks are involved.

Longer term we need to progress on two avenues. We need to make sure we separate the "safe" content, where it is just metadata and content, from the "unsafe" content with scriptable content.

Then we can look at providing curation and auditing as part of the store process in combination with slowly improving sandbox support.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I was installing themes and I did see that one, but I didn't like it. I dodged a bullet that day and I didn't know it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

yup yup yup. didnt steam also have some "fun" rm -rf bug a few years ago? proper backups and sandboxing go a long way

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Yeah, I remember that. Was it in the client or in an installed game?

And yeah, backups are the most important from the users end to do. Sandboxing and proper permissions is something KDE needs to focus on.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Yeah, I remember that. Was it in the client or in an installed game?

And yeah, backups are the most important from the users end to do. Sandboxing and proper permissions is something KDE needs to focus on.

[–] DerpDerpingtonIsHere 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oofta. Theirs no reason a theme should be allowed to do this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Or at least not alert the user that it has those powers. This would suggest KDE needs some ranked permissions for their themes and add-ons to prevent this from happening willy-nilly.