A reported Free Download Manager supply chain attack redirected Linux users to a malicious Debian package repository that installed information-stealing malware.

The malware used in this campaign establishes a reverse shell to a C2 server and installs a Bash stealer that collects user data and account credentials.

Kaspersky discovered the potential supply chain compromise case while investigating suspicious domains, finding that the campaign has been underway for over three years.

  • TrustingZebra@lemmy.one
    7·
    10 months ago

    FDM does some clever things to boost download speeds. It splits up a download into different chuncks, and somehow downloads them concurrently. It makes a big difference for large files (for example, Linux ISOs).

    • somedaysoon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      10 months ago

      It only makes a difference if the server is capping the speed per connection. If it’s not then it will not make a difference.

      • TrustingZebra@lemmy.one
        41·
        10 months ago

        I guess many servers are capping speeds them. Makes sense since I almost never see downloads actually take advantage of my Gigabit internet speeds.

        • somedaysoon@lemmy.worldEnglish
          41·
          10 months ago

          It’s interesting to me people still download things in that fashion. What are you downloading?

          I occasionally download something from a web server, but not enough to care about using a download manager that might make it marginally faster. Most larger files I’m downloading are either TV shows and movies from torrents and usenet, or games on steam. All of which will easily saturate a 1Gbps connection.

    • FredericChopin_@feddit.ukEnglish
      101·
      10 months ago

      Im curious as to how it would achieve that?

      It can’t split a file before it has the file. And all downloads are split up. They’re called packets.

      Not saying it doesn’t do it, just wondering how.

      • everett@lemmy.ml
        13·
        10 months ago

        It could make multiple requests to the server, asking each request to resume starting at a certain byte.

          • drspod@lemmy.mlOP
            18·
            10 months ago

            The key thing to know is that a client can do an HTTP HEAD request to get just the Content-Length of the file, and then perform GET requests with the Range request header to fetch a specific chunk of a file.

            This mechanism was introduced in HTTP 1.1 (byte-serving).