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.

  • @[email protected]
    11•10 months ago

    It’s still my favorite download manager on Windows. It often downloads file significantly faster than the download manager built into browsers. Luckily I never installed it on Linux, since I have a habit of only installing from package managers.

    Do you know of a good download manager for Linux?

    • @[email protected]English
      14•10 months 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.

      • @[email protected]
        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).

        • @[email protected]English
          9•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.

          • @[email protected]
            13•10 months ago

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

            • @[email protected]English
              5•10 months ago

              Interesting.

              I feel I’ll save this rabbit hole for weekend and go and have a look at what they do.

              • @[email protected]OP
                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).

      • no banana
        7•10 months ago

        Right? I’ve not thought about download speeds since the 2000’s.

      • arglebargleEnglish
        6•10 months 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.

        • PenguinCoderEnglish
          1•10 months ago

          I was just going to recommend this too; Use axel, aria2 or even ancient hget.

    • @[email protected]
      8•10 months ago

      JDownloader, XDM, FileCentipede (this one is the closest to IDM, although it uses closed source libraries), kGet, etc.

    • arglebargleEnglish
      4•10 months ago

      axel. use axel -n8 to make 8 connections/segments which it will assemble when it is done

    • @[email protected]
      -1•10 months ago

      Xtreme Download Manager. Very similar to Internet Download Manager on Windows.

      Also, use either of those two. FDM is very meh.