Malware discovered on gnome-look.org

In a sobering reminder to the Linux world that they aren’t as perfectly secure as they often think they are, malware has been discovered in theme packages on gnome-look.org, a repository for users to distribute display themes and other elements for customizing the appearance of many Linux-based OS installations.

No matter how secure your system is, there’s never a replacement for a well-educated user who knows to at least be wary of untrusted software packages. While a smart security framework can make a user pause before making a mistake, it’s ultimately still at the user’s mercy. (Though having such a system in place is certainly much better than not having one, or providing a false sense of security.) A Linux user who joyfully installs every package offered is really in no safer a position than… well, the majority of Windows users.