This isn't the first time this has happened, but recently Canonical's Snap store hosted a fraudulent Bitcoin app claiming to be “Exodus Wallet”, causing users to lose money.
An unhappy user on the Snapcraft forum posted that his wallet was empty after using it, and the next day Canonical staff said the wallet had now been deleted and they were investigating the incident. Ta.
Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth jumped into the discussion in another forum post, stating that while “even if the math is interesting, cryptocurrencies are primarily a sludge of despicable intentions,” Wirth said he doesn't think “banning crypto apps will help.” “If anything, it's going to make Linux even worse.”
Shuttleworth also created an additional forum post discussing requiring Snaps to provide “more comprehensive proof of publisher identity for all publishers.” So if you have any good ideas you'd like us to implement to make publishing Snaps more secure, please reply to the linked post.
I hope Canonical can find a good solution, because repeated issues like this would be pretty bad for Snap, Canonical, and Ubuntu.
Alan Pope (formerly at Canonical, now at Axiom) has written two blog posts about “Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490K Swindle” and its follow-up “Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: Follow up 2.0”. You might want to read up on it a little more. background.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
