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.

  • FredericChopin_@feddit.ukEnglish
    14·
    1 year ago

    How much faster are we talking?

    I’ve honestly never looked at my downloads and though huh you should be quicker, well maybe in 90’s.

    • TrustingZebra@lemmy.one
      7·
      1 year 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·
        1 year 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·
          1 year 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·
            1 year 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·
        1 year 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·
          1 year ago

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

            • drspod@lemmy.mlOP
              18·
              1 year 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).

    • arglebargle@lemm.eeEnglish
      61·
      1 year ago

      just grabbed a gig file - it would take about 8 minutes with a standard download in Firefox. Use a manager or axel and it will be 30 seconds. Then again speed isnt everything, its also nice to be able to have auto retry and completion.