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Open Source Software Hijacked To Push Malware

Posted by samzenpus on from the malware-of-the-people dept.

jfruhlinger writes "VLC Media Player is a popular, useful, and free-as-in-beer piece of software. Unfortunately, its open source nature makes it easier for people with bad intentions to repackage it in nefarious ways. Not only do some of these folks claim that they're the originator of the software (a violation of trademark law and the license), but they often bundle it up with crapware and malware, which is a real dilemma for open source developers who play by the rules."

10 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. No It doesn't by zero.kalvin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It doesn't matter if it is open or close source. You are an idiot if you download anything from an untrusted source, point and end of discussion.

    1. Re:No It doesn't by sortadan · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yeah, I know it's silly to complain about 'news' headlines, but it sounded like the official distribution had been infected. That is not the case and http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ is still a safe provider of the software.

    2. Re:No It doesn't by Ocker3 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Exactly. If you do a search for a printer's name, you often get a lot of random driver storage sites that pop up, but who's vetted that software? I always hit the manufacturer first, and for a piece of software I go to a known-good download site (like C-Net) as their business model is based partly on being a trusted source of software. If you aren't downloading VLC from the SourceForge repository, you're opening yourself up to using a hacked and backdoored product.

    3. Re:No It doesn't by amiga3D · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I can understand your annoyance, I've often felt that one of the reasons linux suffers from so few malware incidents is that the users are generally more technically proficient and security conscious. I always notice where my software is coming from and take care to notice when I'm redirected by a site. I always check to make sure that I don't allow anything to be installed I didn't ask for. Not saying I'm a genius but I've noticed most windows users seem to download and just click okay buttons indiscriminately without reading anything.

    4. Re:No It doesn't by cyberstealth1024 · · Score: 3, Informative

      To do so only download from your operating systems repository or app store. If you OS doesn't have one, find one that does.

      ...because there has never been malware on the Android Market.

      and the Amazon App Store has an inherent risk

  2. Show in the right places by udoschuermann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The text in proprietary software can be patched to change attribution, and viruses can be attached to binaries easily enough. It's just a little easier with software for which the source code is available. Either way, don't "shop" in the wrong place.

    --
    --Udo.
  3. Has nothing to do with OSS by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can do this with any software. Scammers have been selling virus-loaded copies of Microsoft Office since the days of dial-up.

  4. Digital Signatures (from distributions) by lkcl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    this is entirely and precisely why distros such as debian go to such lengths to place GPG digital signatures on the downloads; why they go to such lengths to enact extensive GPG key-signing web-of-trust exchanges etc. etc. no software is allowed into the archive that is not GPG digitally-signed by someone who is part of the GPG web-of-trust network (thus whose physical identity has been identified MULTIPLE times by their peers including showing proof of identity in the form of passports or other physical but trusted identification document).

    the lengths to which for example the debian developers go are sufficiently extreme that it would be an incredibly foolish exercise for any debian developer to even attempt to place spyware or any kind of malware into packages, because they could be identified (via their GPG Digital Signature) and thus banned for life from the debian project.

    the lengths to which it would be necessary to go, to circumvent such a system, involve cracking of GPG Digital Signatures or of compromising the Debian Packaging system itself, and switching off the signature-checking system. whilst the average person would not know how to check that this had occurred, it is an extremely remote and unlikely possibility in and of itself; the experienced debian user could boot up off of a live boot or rescue CD and use rkhunter or chkrootkit to verify that the system had not been compromised.

    all in all it has to be said, in simpler terms (as many people on comments here have already said) - don't download stuff you can't trust! but if you can't be bothered to check, but are using a stupid operating system into which a package verification system is not built-in from the ground up, then don't use that stupid operating system! if you ignore this kind of advice, then you deserve everything that you get.

  5. Package manager, anyone? by seandiggity · · Score: 3, Informative

    Besides the obvious point that you can package any type of bloat or malware with closed-source software (spend some time putting together an installation wizard for Windows, and you'll see you can get away with pretty much anything), there's also the fact that F/OSS operating systems almost always have a package manager, which encourages only downloading through trusted sources. So the F/OSS way of doing things is to be careful about trusting where your binaries come from.

    sudo apt-get install vlc is not gonna get you anything but a legit version of VLC, unless you setup JOez BaDazzz REPO by following directions on the 5th page of Google's search results.

    --
    Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
  6. Defend your trademark! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    This happened to Mixxx DJ Software (http://mixxx.org), there was a web site that was shipping a Windows installer which installed crapware and Mixxx. The best part about it is their crapware would come up in the ads when you searched for Mixxx on Sourceforge!

    The site that was promoting this crapware installer used the Mixxx name (trademark), several screenshots featuring the Mixxx logo and included a footer that indicated the contents of the page were copyright of their company 2008...

    So we tracked them down and sent them a cease-and-desist email for violating our trademark (misrepresenting themselves as authors and using screenshots which feature the Mixxx brand without our consent)... Simply put we told them they could NOT use our trademark at all, this mean no screens with our logo, no mention of the projects name -> this means to comply with trademark law they will have to alter artwork (covered under the GPLv2) and in doing so will be required rebuild the app and redistribute all of the code also. As far as we are aware they complied and now they are substantially less relavent from a branding perspective and no longer really much of a threat to our user community...

    You may not be able to enforce copyright if they comply with the terms of the license the software is distributed under (in this case GPLv2), but you can sure as hell stick it to people who attempt to tarnish your brand with trademark law and certainly make it far less convenient for these scum-balls to do this and still be on the right side of the law.

    -G