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Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

notepad-plus-plus.org

171–180 of 560 posts

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#171

So what mitigations should the end user be doing? How do we know if anything compromised?

Right the writeup doesn't mention when it started and what versions are affected

The writeup says it right there:

"The security exper’s analysis indicates the attack ceased on November 10, 2025, while the hosting provider’s statement shows potential attacker access until December 2, 2025. Based on both assessment, I estimate the overall compromise period spanned from June through December 2, 2025, when all attacker access was definitively terminated."

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#172

What was the impact of being compromised? Were they able to inject code into releases of Notepad++?

They were able to replace the downloaded executable with their own version. From the article:

> 2. Even though the bad actors have lost access to the server from the 2nd of September, 2025, they maintained the credentials of our internal services existing on that server until the 2nd of December, which could have allowed the malicious actors to redirect some of the traffic going to https://notepad-plus-plus.org/getDownloadUrl.php to their own servers and return the updates download URL with compromised updates.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, it doesn't mean they support the status quo. It just means some political tactics are pointless, incompetent, and counterproductive. Political opinions about how things should be don't automatically dictate the actions that should be taken in support of those opinions. I can be mad about a law or a court decision and still have the good sense to, for example, not throw red paint on a lawmaker or judge. Some beha…

Maybe, but telling people who are speaking to their audience on the platforms that audience is voluntarily visiting that they need to shut up is even more pointless, incompetent, and counterproductive . Notepad++ is free, open source software for which there are dozens of alternative packages of equivalent quality. The entire cost of using this software and benefiting from the work of the developer, is having to scro…

Notepad++ maintainers can do whatever they want. I don't care. I'm just taking apart this tedious, superficial, self-serving activist cliche about how not being an activist is supporting the status quo. Some people want change just as much as activists do, but they have different ideas about when and how it's helpful to be an activist.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#174
post #4

i always worry about tools like this, maintained by small teams, that are so universal that even if only a small fraction of installs are somehow co-opted by malicious actors, you have a wide open attack surface on most tech companies. e.g. iTerm, Cyberduck, editors of all shades, various VSCode extensions, etc.

I don’t get it, why don’t you all—absolutely all of you reading—use Little Snitch? [1] It really doesn’t compute in my head why would any macOS user not use a network firewall like this, or similar, to block unwanted outgoing HTTP(s) requests. You can easily inspect the packet with tools like Wireshark or Burp Suite Professional (or Community) edition, or any other proxy tool, of which there are many in the macOS eco…

If an application wants to talk to AWS, how am I supposed to know if it's legit or not?

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#175

> Traffic from certain targeted users was selectively redirected to attacker-controlled served malicious update manifests. I'd be curious to know if there was any pattern as to which users were targeted, but the post doesn't go into any further detail except to say it was likely a Chinese state-sponsored group.

I dont know who hacked the servers nor I do know how to find out. Let's blame state actors, who's going to come verify these claims.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar comments also come up in the [now regular] "I don't want to see political articles on HN" threads, and I think the response is similar: Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view: One in support/service of whatever the current status quo is. Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political. If you're lucky enough to be one of the fortunate people on earth who are not un…

Nah, it doesn't mean they support the status quo. It just means some political tactics are pointless, incompetent, and counterproductive. Political opinions about how things should be don't automatically dictate the actions that should be taken in support of those opinions. I can be mad about a law or a court decision and still have the good sense to, for example, not throw red paint on a lawmaker or judge. Some beha…

> and still have the good sense to

The good sense is your judgement. At some point a real, direct, disruptive protest is going to be the right solution for a big enough group of people. Peaceful protests are just a "we're starting to get there" signal. It's not like politicians normally say "gee, lots of people don't like how I abuse power, I guess I'll stop now". It's all about being collectively upset enough about status quo.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#177

So what mitigations should the end user be doing? How do we know if anything compromised?

Disable auto-updates, just like you should with every piece of software on your machine. This was the result of letting other people silently replace your programs. Don't allow that.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#178

Probably related to this: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/v869-about-taiwan/

Everyone is entitled to their opinions. My opinion is that open source documentation is like polite dinner conversation: It’s not the proper place to discuss politics. If an author wishes to use their open source project as a platform to discuss politics, that’s the author’s prerogative. But then, as perhaps in this instance, it could be to the detriment of the project itself.

> My opinion is that open source documentation is like polite dinner conversation: It’s not the proper place to discuss politics.

I know this is a common turn of phrase, but I can not help thinking that if the political conversation is impolite it is because some in the conversation is being impolite not due to the topic itself.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#179

Will malware/virus scanners detect any bad software?

The whole approach of virus scanning is reactive and incomplete. This is because, except for some uncertain guesswork using "heuristics", it depends upon vendor analysis of submitted malware infection samples after it's already happened to determine specific malware file/process signatures. This doesn't and cannot catch all possible malware that has ever happened, especially if it's new, not widespread, or evaded analysis from ever being noticed. Thus, a fraction of malware will always slip and will always remain undetectable.

After a machine is compromised by malware, there's rarely-to-never a trustworthy way to ever fix it with 100% certainty. And especially worrisome is "repair" from the host itself which maybe infected with a rootkit that hides and repairs the malware. Thus, the only correct solution is to completely reimage/reinstall from trusted sources. Deviate from this path at one's own extreme cost/risk.

There also exist a tiny amount of even worse, specialized malware, usually deployed by state actors, that infect hardware in such a way that makes them difficult and sometimes uneconomical to repair.

PSA: Never run untrustworthy shit on any machine that matters. This also includes FOSS projects that don't have their shit together.

Re: Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored actors

#180
Can someone help clarify this for me?

Is it correct to say that users would only get the compromised version if they downloaded from the website?

Notepad++ has auto-update feature, is there any indication that updates from the AutoUpdate were compromised?

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