It seems to me like we should put out a blog entry with some response to this. Just so that we have a central point to refer to when people ask about this.
However, I have no idea what that blog entry should say, beyond “if someone wants to do so, they can inject malware into the build process of software, here’s an example of how they can do that”, and then point to that report. Gj On Sat, 30 May 2020 at 12:08, Emma Atkinson <emma.atkins...@gmail.com> wrote: > Should someone from the Apache Netbeans governing team, approach Microsoft > for information on this matter? > > I would have thought Microsoft GitHub would welcome any approach that > might go some way toward tackling the problem. Knowing details should > enable the Netbeans and NetbeansIDE communities to help. It would also be > good for the public to know Apache Netbeans takes these matters as > seriously as Oracle would have done. Be on the front foot. > > This might be a matter of reducing risk rather than eliminating a > vulnerability. Any fix may not involve much effort. Perhaps a written or > updated guide might be all that is needed. If the contaminated accounts > belong to computer science students, perhaps some changes to Apache > Netbeans IDE defaults, or added warnings would help users avoid inadvertent > contamination of their code or build environments from untrusted origins. A > general lesson in good practice perhaps. > > Emma > > > On Sat, 30 May 2020, 09:32 Emilian Bold, <emilian.b...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I'm leaning towards this being a student project honestly. Why would a >> company developing a legacy project grab random unknown Ant-based >> projects from GitHub? >> >> But NetBeans is used a lot for teaching and I suspect teachers don't >> introduce Maven / Gradle since they are more complex and they use the >> default Ant-based build system. >> >> So, if a smart student wants to troll his fellow students it does >> something like this. >> >> Note that GitHub has the full logs of who uploaded, downloaded, >> visited and cloned those 26 projects but made no remarks about them. I >> think those logs would be highly informative as to source and the >> target domain / country. My money is on students from India / China / >> Greece / Brazil. >> >> --emi >> >> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 11:50 PM Alan <netbeans.5zc...@ambitonline.com> >> wrote: >> > >> > The odds that a virus scanner would have a pattern for something like >> this are very low indeed, so in this specific case I doubt it would make a >> difference. However, excluding paths for any reason leaves an aperture open >> that could be exploited. >> > >> > The targeted attacks I've seen are amazingly specific. For example, >> someone profiled a customer site looking for the queries with the slowest >> response time, then launched requests against those pages at a rate low >> enough to not trigger DDoS protection on the network firewall, but to bring >> the site down anyway. >> > >> > This malware has the hallmarks of such a specific attack. Scan the end >> product for open source components, then infect the components, get in, get >> the code, go away. Not something your general antivirus software is ever >> going to even notice. >> > >> > On 2020-05-29 16:32, Juan Algaba wrote: >> > >> > I wonder if excluding netbeans from antivirus scanning (for performance >> reasons), but not the project folders, make you more at risk to something >> like this? >> > >> > On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 12:40 PM Alan <netbeans.5zc...@ambitonline.com> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> The malware is oddly focused. I suspect a specific group was being >> targeted. If eventually GitHub releases the project names that might >> provide a clue. >> >> >> >> On 2020-05-29 15:30, Emilian Bold wrote: >> >> >> >> so I guess this is all just about me. :-) >> >> >> >> Hehe. >> >> >> >> Still, they worked too much to target Ant and NetBeans. I think the >> >> Gradle wrapper is a much easier target and developers will run >> >> ./gradlew without a 2nd tought. >> >> >> >> --emi >> >> >> >> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 10:25 PM Geertjan Wielenga < >> geert...@apache.org> wrote: >> >> >> >> Sure, those are simply Ant files. >> >> >> >> I also wonder about the 26 open source projects they refer to on >> GitHub, without naming them, where this problem was encountered. I have >> about that number of NetBeans projects in my GitHub repo, so I guess this >> is all just about me. :-) >> >> >> >> Gj >> >> >> >> On Fri, 29 May 2020 at 21:22, Scott Palmer <swpal...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> The malware explicitly targets NetBeans: >> >> >> >> The malware is capable of identifying the NetBeans project files and >> embedding malicious payload both in project files and build JAR files. >> Below is a high -evel description of the Octopus Scanner operation: >> >> >> >> • Identify user's NetBeans directory >> >> • Enumerate all projects in the NetBeans directory >> >> • Copy malicious payload cache.dat to nbproject/cache.dat >> >> • Modify the nbproject/build-impl.xml file to make sure the malicious >> payload is executed every time NetBeans project is build >> >> • If the malicious payload is an instance of the Octopus Scanner >> itself the newly built JAR file is also infected. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Though they did also mention: >> >> >> >> "If malware developers took the time to implement this malware >> specifically for NetBeans, it means that it could either be a targeted >> attack, or they may already have implemented the malware for build systems >> such as Make, MsBuild, Gradle and others as well and it may be spreading >> unnoticed," GitHub added. >> >> >> >> >> >> I’m not sure if there is any sort of sanity check NB can do to the >> cache.dat file to help prevent this. >> >> >> >> Scott >> >> >> >> >> >> On May 29, 2020, at 3:16 PM, Geertjan Wielenga <geert...@apache.org> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> It seems to be saying that a build system that uses Apache Ant can be >> poisoned by malware. That probably is equally true for Gradle and Apache >> Maven — so I don’t understand why they’re picking on Ant. >> >> >> >> Gj >> >> >> >> On Fri, 29 May 2020 at 21:09, Peter Steele <steeleh...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> Hi >> >> >> >> Saw this >> >> >> >> >> https://www.zdnet.com/article/github-warns-java-developers-of-new-malware-poisoning-netbeans-projects/ >> >> >> >> Do we know anything more about this? >> >> >> >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@netbeans.apache.org >> >> For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@netbeans.apache.org >> >> >> >> For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: >> >> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > >> > >> > -- >> > >> > -Juan Algaba >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@netbeans.apache.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@netbeans.apache.org >> >> For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: >> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists >> >>
