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cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/62150833
Decided to create a thread for tracking and sharing the news and opinions on the new Malicious Atomic Arch NPM Campaign in which more than 1600 Arch Linux AUR Packages Hijacked to Deploy Infostealer and eBPF Rootkit.
Find the infected packages: https://md.archlinux.org/s/SxbqukK6IA
Most popular packages on the affected list
Package Popularity Affected Reverted libgdata 16.98% (2026-06-11 14:59+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:30+00:00) python-future 5.38% (2026-06-11 15:58+00:00) (2026-06-11 16:54+00:00) gdl 3.36% (2026-06-11 13:35+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:32+00:00) libquvi-scripts 2.31% (2026-06-11 15:05+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:33+00:00) libquvi 2.22% (2026-06-11 15:04+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:33+00:00) gtkimageview 2.19% (2026-06-11 13:44+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:33+00:00) python2-pyparsing 2.02% (2026-06-11 14:23+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:40+00:00) python2-appdirs 1.96% (2026-06-11 14:22+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:26+00:00) compiler-rt19 1.95% (2026-06-11 14:23+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:30+00:00) python2-packaging 1.90% (2026-06-11 14:21+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:38+00:00) wine-nine 1.86% (2026-06-11 15:48+00:00) (2026-06-11 21:36+00:00) clang19 1.86% (2026-06-11 15:36+00:00) (2026-06-11 21:24+00:00) clang15 1.76% (2026-06-12 12:34+00:00) (2026-06-12 12:54+00:00) mono-addins 1.69% (2026-06-11 15:33+00:00) (2026-06-11 21:34+00:00) python2-chardet 1.68% (2026-06-12 12:42+00:00) (2026-06-12 14:48+00:00) python-monotonic 1.55% (2026-06-11 15:43+00:00) (2026-06-11 21:37+00:00) python2-cffi 1.47% (2026-06-12 12:44+00:00) (2026-06-12 15:10+00:00) alvr 1.26% (2026-06-11 13:54+00:00) (2026-06-11 16:50+00:00) python2-gobject 1.23% (2026-06-12 12:44+00:00) (2026-06-12 14:47+00:00) vidcutter 1.03% (2026-06-11 13:24+00:00) (2026-06-11 17:43+00:00)Learn more about the attack: https://www.sonatype.com/blog/atomic-arch-npm-campaign-adds-malicious-dependency.
That was my understanding but I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion though.
This hack drops an infostealer that could steal passwords and other secrets, so even if the system removes the malware, the data stolen would still be an issue.
So you can be infected for even a few days and get some passwords stolen that would still be problematic.
But yeah the subset of Steamdeck users that activated write mode and installed an affected AUR package must be pretty small.
My conclusion does align with yours, so I'm not sure what you mean. It is likely to be infected, because most people don't use the AUR on the Steam Deck (because of the reverting back). And my conclusion was, if anyone is infected, then I would not trust the system anymore.