Not sure who needs to know this, but if you download and install the Windows version of Rufus, the free software for writing ISO images to USB/CD-ROM, your PC will end up with about 100 trojans.
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I've been made aware of a post from someone representing Rufus who says I'm very confused about this post. I've reported that Windows Defender went bananas after I installed Rufus on a Windows 11 device. It immediately popped up warnings about hacktools and trojans being installed while it was installing. I wish I had a record of it but I nuked everything after the alerts.
@briankrebs There are some rather ... possessive communities around USB boot image builders, I forget if it was rufus or ventoy or what, but long story short: if you badmouth the product, the sealions. Dear god, the sealions.
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@briankrebs There are some rather ... possessive communities around USB boot image builders, I forget if it was rufus or ventoy or what, but long story short: if you badmouth the product, the sealions. Dear god, the sealions.
@xabean @briankrebs
I remember reporting a vulnerability to the Rufus developer, and he was quite rude and condescending in response. -
Is it ironic that your Windoze PC gets infected while trying to download a file that allows you to write an installable Linux ISO? I think very much so and I'm still LOLing about it.
windoze malware: "quick. we gotta infect this machine while we have the chance. once it's running linux, we're out of another home..."
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Not sure who needs to know this, but if you download and install the Windows version of Rufus, the free software for writing ISO images to USB/CD-ROM, your PC will end up with about 100 trojans.
Edit: The site I downloaded from was rufus[.]ie which is apparently the official site. During installation, the software threw up a couple of rather verbose messages saying it needed to download additional components.
@briankrebs @vx_underground Possible goop sighting?
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@jab01701mid @briankrebs Unfortunately dd-ing windows images to boot sticks just ends up with an unbootable image.
Ventoy is pretty decent, and i have to admit the Windows Media Creation Tool works well, if you have to work from Windows.@aetios @briankrebs @jab01701mid Why would they be unbootable?
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I've been made aware of a post from someone representing Rufus who says I'm very confused about this post. I've reported that Windows Defender went bananas after I installed Rufus on a Windows 11 device. It immediately popped up warnings about hacktools and trojans being installed while it was installing. I wish I had a record of it but I nuked everything after the alerts.
@briankrebs Rufus doesn't have an installer though. That's the thing. One simply doesn't install Rufus.
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I've been made aware of a post from someone representing Rufus who says I'm very confused about this post. I've reported that Windows Defender went bananas after I installed Rufus on a Windows 11 device. It immediately popped up warnings about hacktools and trojans being installed while it was installing. I wish I had a record of it but I nuked everything after the alerts.
@briankrebs
I think it's worth noting, a long history of actors buying ad-space at the top of search engines.The url in the ad appears legitimate (it's visually the legitimate URL), but when clicked goes to a different url. I'm not positive that's the case here, but it's been done 100s of times for 100s of other tools (AI tool installers, chrome installs, etc), and there is zero visual indication it's an ad directing to the wrong domain.
Thanks to LLMs, the landing pages have also gotten much better at copying the real pages too.
Making it more difficult, is that ads don't always present themselves, so seeing it a 2nd time may take 100s of visits
Or maybe it really was a compromised rufus domain
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Not sure who needs to know this, but if you download and install the Windows version of Rufus, the free software for writing ISO images to USB/CD-ROM, your PC will end up with about 100 trojans.
Edit: The site I downloaded from was rufus[.]ie which is apparently the official site. During installation, the software threw up a couple of rather verbose messages saying it needed to download additional components.
Ha ha ha hah: you’re still using Windows. 🤪🤭
I recommend you self boost this one a bunch! LOL!
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I've been made aware of a post from someone representing Rufus who says I'm very confused about this post. I've reported that Windows Defender went bananas after I installed Rufus on a Windows 11 device. It immediately popped up warnings about hacktools and trojans being installed while it was installing. I wish I had a record of it but I nuked everything after the alerts.
@briankrebs please be more specific, you're coming off like a rambling tech illiterate that complains that the PC is broken, and it turns out there is no internet connection. Did you check the checkum of the installer/exe? What ISO did you attempt to write? Can you name one single instance of malware included in the infection? -
A kind reader submitted the Rufus installer to any.run, a sandbox which walks through the installation of software to find malware that gets installed only *AFTER* the executable is clicked. You can see exactly all of the post-install prompts to download additional software that I also saw.
The main usage for Rufus in my mind is to image an iso of linux to a key - and then blow all those nasty microsoft malwares to smithereens!
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@briankrebs So I hate to be snarky, but "dd" has been there all along people. Having to install an entire 3rd party application, for something that the OS should have stable, reliable methods for, to format a storage device and transfer a standard filesystem image to it, is intolerable. But it's Windows...depends on curl to download its own updates...
@jab01701mid@mastodon.social @briankrebs@infosec.exchange These days with WSL
ddis also available on Windows. -
@jab01701mid@mastodon.social @briankrebs@infosec.exchange These days with WSL
ddis also available on Windows.@lispi314 @briankrebs I saw WSL and thought "why not just run linux or some other *nix variant". I even learned PowerShell, and it has lots of *nix like aliases and applets. I installed a Microsoft implementation of PS for linux because I did not want to actually boot Windows on my HW to write PS scripts for a Windows target I was being paid to develop.
Still - go native.
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@xabean @briankrebs
I remember reporting a vulnerability to the Rufus developer, and he was quite rude and condescending in response.@wdormann I just read the full thread, yes the full threat, and god what an insufferable attitude from this guy. I'm convinced he'd manage to disagree with the Pope on Catholicism. @xabean @briankrebs I
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@briankrebs Rufus doesn't have an installer though. That's the thing. One simply doesn't install Rufus.
@j Semantics
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Not sure who needs to know this, but if you download and install the Windows version of Rufus, the free software for writing ISO images to USB/CD-ROM, your PC will end up with about 100 trojans.
Edit: The site I downloaded from was rufus[.]ie which is apparently the official site. During installation, the software threw up a couple of rather verbose messages saying it needed to download additional components.
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Not sure who needs to know this, but if you download and install the Windows version of Rufus, the free software for writing ISO images to USB/CD-ROM, your PC will end up with about 100 trojans.
Edit: The site I downloaded from was rufus[.]ie which is apparently the official site. During installation, the software threw up a couple of rather verbose messages saying it needed to download additional components.
@briankrebs Here’s another user who faced malware alerts while using Rufus. They were flashing Kali Linux, though, and it’s ISO file got scanned along the process.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hacking_Tutorials/comments/1t62lrs/virus_in_rufus_while_flashing_usb_for_kali/ -
@briankrebs
I think it's worth noting, a long history of actors buying ad-space at the top of search engines.The url in the ad appears legitimate (it's visually the legitimate URL), but when clicked goes to a different url. I'm not positive that's the case here, but it's been done 100s of times for 100s of other tools (AI tool installers, chrome installs, etc), and there is zero visual indication it's an ad directing to the wrong domain.
Thanks to LLMs, the landing pages have also gotten much better at copying the real pages too.
Making it more difficult, is that ads don't always present themselves, so seeing it a 2nd time may take 100s of visits
Or maybe it really was a compromised rufus domain
@rx13 @briankrebs this. I struggled to find the news article about it but yep, ad space being bought on common tools searches which show the correct website in the URL slot next to the result but take you to the non genuine page.
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I've been made aware of a post from someone representing Rufus who says I'm very confused about this post. I've reported that Windows Defender went bananas after I installed Rufus on a Windows 11 device. It immediately popped up warnings about hacktools and trojans being installed while it was installing. I wish I had a record of it but I nuked everything after the alerts.
@briankrebs i'm sorry someone actually posted that on github issues?? Oy vey..
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Is it ironic that your Windoze PC gets infected while trying to download a file that allows you to write an installable Linux ISO? I think very much so and I'm still LOLing about it.
@briankrebs you know you can run software in a vm and let it access specific devices while running? I trust very few software packages...
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Not sure who needs to know this, but if you download and install the Windows version of Rufus, the free software for writing ISO images to USB/CD-ROM, your PC will end up with about 100 trojans.
Edit: The site I downloaded from was rufus[.]ie which is apparently the official site. During installation, the software threw up a couple of rather verbose messages saying it needed to download additional components.
@briankrebs Yippi, I successfully infiltrated my workplace. Seriously though, sources, proofv, anything?
