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Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

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41–50 of 165 posts

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#41

If you've identified GitHub repositories hosting malware, you can report them directly to GitHub via their Abuse Report page, providing links and any relevant details. GitHub typically removes repositories that violate their Acceptable Use Policy, but response times may vary. If the malware is actively being used for harm, you may also consider reporting it to security organizations or CERT teams.

One thing I appreciate about Github is that every time I've reported something, I've felt like an actual human went through my report and actually read the things I wrote. Perhaps it's a bit silly to appreciate basic human interaction, but for so many online environments the only interaction you'll ever see is done through chatbots and automated work flows.

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#43
post #25

Fun fact: if you come across one of these discord webhooks you can delete them. Just curl -X DELETE https://discord.com/api/webhooks/ [...]

I'm not familiar with the context here, could you please elaborate? If I understood correctly, any unauthenticated user can delete the webhook? I can currently find hundreds of matches for that on Github, anyone could just go and delete them all?

In many cases the necessary authentication string is present within the webhook URL itself (which you're supposed to keep secret). By possessing the URL, you've proven you're authorized to use it, and with Discord that also means you're authorized to remove it.

In other cases you may need additional headers to authenticate, but if the script you've found contains the URL, it probably also contains the auth header too.

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#44

First image in the article reminds me of draw.io diagrams. Is this a drawio theme/library or some other tool was used to create it?

https://excalidraw.com/ probably

the font seems to be Excalifont indeed

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#45

First image in the article reminds me of draw.io diagrams. Is this a drawio theme/library or some other tool was used to create it?

https://excalidraw.com/ probably

Yep that looks like it. I also found that drawio indeed supports sketch theme: sketch.diagrams.net

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#46
post #15
post #11

I think Microsoft has a general problem with getting rid of unwanted things within their eco-system. I keep complaining that their feedback.azure.com portal is filled with spam/malware comments and links, but even internally their teams can't reach anyone to get it fixed. Example https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/9d0b22d8-c025-...

As another data point: MSFT have some sort of open mail server/service called onmicrosoft.com which (in my experience anyway) is only being used to send out fraudulent paypal messages. Because it lets the spammer set the From to service@paypal.com and also contains valid DKIM etc, it sails past spam filtering. There are so many complaints about this on (real) paypal.com forums, but Microsoft are apparently unable to…

How would Microsoft forge a DKIM signature? It sounds more likely that it's just a shitty email from Paypal.

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#47
We could make an open source database. Then very simple browser extension to place a very prominent warning on any GitHub repo page that happens to be suspected malware.

I guess the problem is that only helps those who already know they need to watch out for this sort of thing, not the users most likely to be pwned.

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#48
post #21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably you don't send out emails appearing to come from service@paypal.com saying things like "Reminder: You've still got a money request", with an HTML body that looks exactly like Paypal but contains a fraudulent link and phone number, so you should be fine.

No, I didn't. I did get those emails a lot on my university dot edu email. I understand there are legacy/compatibility challenges with the telephone infrastructure but you'd think this problem is entirely solvable with emails. :/

It is easily solvable. But it has to be implemented on the receiving side. Ask your university to put something in place!

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#49
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't distributing malware break a number of laws?

What is the definition of distribution? If I posted a code snippet of malware on github or my personal site for educational purposes, does that count as distribution?

That depends heavily on the law in question. Germany e.g. almost completely bans white hat activities because hacking is evil, and no amount of common sense has been able to get through lawmakers' thick skulls.

Re: Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data

#50
post #11

I think Microsoft has a general problem with getting rid of unwanted things within their eco-system. I keep complaining that their feedback.azure.com portal is filled with spam/malware comments and links, but even internally their teams can't reach anyone to get it fixed. Example https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/idea/9d0b22d8-c025-...

These have got to be AI generated. The ones that mention details from the post are borderline comical:

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