I set up a quick demonstration to show risks of curl|bash and how a bad-actor could potentially hide a malicious script.

It’s nothing new or groundbreaking, but I figure it never hurts to have another reminder.

  • xylogx@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    2 hours ago

    Yes this has risks. At the same time anytime you run any piece of software you are facing the same risks, especially if that software is updated from the internet. Take a look at the NIST docs in software supply chain risks.

    • ShortN0te@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 hour ago

      Not completely correct. A lot of updaters work with signatures to verify that what was downloaded is signed by the correct key.

      With bash curl there is no such check in place.

      So strictly speeking it is not the same.

      • xylogx@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        25 minutes ago

        Signatures do not help if your distribution infra gets compromised. See Solarwinds and the more recent node.js incidents.

        • ShortN0te@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          13 minutes ago

          This is incorrect. If the update you download is compromised then the signature is invalid and the update fails.

          To achieve a compromised update you either need to compromise the update infrastructure AND the key or the infratstructure AND exploit the local updater to accept the invalid or forged signature.