this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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A Bitcoin investor was recently scammed out of 9 Bitcoin (worth around $490K) in a fake “Exodus wallet” desktop application for Linux, published in the Canonical Snap Store. This isn’t the first time; if nothing changes, it likely won’t be the last.

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[–] coolmojo@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (4 children)
[–] danielfgom@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's is the genuine one. There is a genuine company called Exodus for Crypto. The problem is that a scammer made their own clone and nobody verified whether they really are from the Exodus company.

If you check the manifest on Flathub you'll see they verified it belongs to the real Exodus

[–] coolmojo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Yes. You are right. Thanks. Just listened to the Linux Matters podcast episode about this. Crazy.

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

42,396 installs.... Holy shit.

Edit, from the article:

This “Exodus” application published in the Snap store was indeed a scam application. There is a genuine organisation that developed a real, seemingly ’legitimate’ cryptocurrency wallet application. This is not that.

Any chance that the FlatHub one is legit?

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Apparently the Flathub one is indeed legit

[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I mean FlatHub isn't safe in general. You could just target someone downloading the package and give them a malicious package instead. FlatHub doesn't check sigs, so its a hot mess

[–] danielfgom@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

They seem to be doing more on that side than Canonical is. But I agree, it should be MANDATORY that the developer is thoroughly vetted and approved and the code run and checked before publishing.

I hope this is a wake up call for Snaps and Flatpaks.

Apps from the repo have the security, which is why I always default to the distribution repo

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

it should be MANDATORY that the developer is thoroughly vetted and approved and the code run and checked Brexit before publishing.

Brexit?

[–] danielfgom@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Damn autocorrect...

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Its not terrible but its certainly not great either

[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Its pretty terrible compared to normal OS package managers.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How so? I just open up gnome software an search for the application I need

[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 1 points 2 years ago

Cryptographic verification of the packages authenticity

[–] AProfessional@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The repo is gpg signed. I don’t know why you think thats not sufficient.

“packages” don’t exist like traditional distros. Its a large repo of data.

[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Point me to the documentation that describes this

[–] AProfessional@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This isn't even the right project's documentation

[–] AProfessional@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

… I assumed you knew the basics.

Flatpak uses ostree for all data. https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/under-the-hood.html

I'm disappointed you criticize the project so harshly with no knowledge of it.

[–] delirious_owl@discuss.online 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No, my point is that if flat pak doesn't document that they cryptographically verify the authenticity of packages, then they dont.

Even the ostree docs say that it supports it gpg encryption. It supports it. It doesn't enforce it. That depends on the implementation.

I will continue to harshly criticize projects that leave users vulnerable. Want to prove me wrong? Link me to the flat pak docks that clearly say that all packages are cryptographically verified after download and before upload.

[–] AProfessional@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Look, Flatpak does, and it’s secure. You can spread misinformation if you like but don’t be proud of it.

You clearly have no capacity to accept new information in good faith.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It’s produced without upstream involvement but does seem to be legit so far. I placed a post seeking clarification about the Flatpak situation on Reddit 6 months ago. I quickly got a response after posting it. However, the response was from some scammers and I never got a response from the company behind it itself.