this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2026
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If you recently used Cargo, make sure your system didn't get infected. Here is another article with a little more info: https://www.stepsecurity.io/blog/arrayref-rust-crate-supply-chain-attack

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[–] BB_C@programming.dev 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

It appears I wasn’t hit, though I easily could have been, as I installed some Rust-based Python packages recently.

I easily could have been

If you're using good projects that have Cargo.lock checked in (should be about everyone nowadays), an do the right thing using --locked with cargo install, then not really, It wouldn't have been easy.

Unless both an upstream (auto-)merging a bot PR updating to the malicious version (bad), and you installing that upstream (spectacularly unlucky), happened to coincide within that 86 minutes the malicious crate was up (39 minutes if advisory-db was hit at any step), which is almost impossible, but more importantly, fully traceable and investigable at the ecosystem level. And if we are talking released versions only, then the upstream would have had to cut a release and publish it also within that window.

But yes, this is a historic first, a malicious publishing of a real crate with real dependants.


Edit: I checked all arrayref dependants, and no crate published within the compromised window. No crate explicitly depends on >=0.3.10 (forcing the malicious version). And no crate published after the incident (potentially indicating fixing an earlier mistake) except for a couple of no-name blockchain crates that don't even have source repos.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Well that’s the thing that scares me; I installed some Python packages (via uv) that compile Rust code upon installation.

I don’t know what they do, or how pip handles it. I had to go and dig, and figure out how they install packages and what the original projects use.