Are packages from flathub always safe?

shapis@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 87 points –

I usually trust my distro repos without checking. Can the same be applied to flathub without much worry?

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I'd recommend that you stop using Flatpak immediately, it's a horrific security nightmare.

https://flatkill.org

  1. It looks like this website hasn't been updated since 2020.
  2. Most of the things here are (probably) patched, besides many developers have claimed the right to update their own apps, and those apps are verified (a new feature created in 2023).
  3. Before uploading an app that requires home or host filesystem access, developers must specify the reason.
  4. Ever since xdg portals became a thing, I have seen more apps switch to them

The fact that the website hasn't been updated since 2020 and still has an open CVE shines the light on Flatpak's attention to security.

Regarding point 3, if that's true, then why are all of the most-dowloaded packages on Flathub mislabelled as 'sandboxed' when they have full write access to a user's home directory? That isn't a sandbox.

Flatpak currently has a 7.2 vulnerability that has gone unaddressed since 2017. The maximum vulnerability rating is a 9, so this is quite major.

https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor\_id=16613&product\_id=&version\_id=&page=1&hasexp=0&opdos=0&opec=0&opov=0&opcsrf=0&opgpriv=0&opsqli=0&opxss=0&opdirt=0&opmemc=0&ophttprs=0&opbyp=0&opfileinc=0&opginf=0&cvssscoremin=3&cvssscoremax=0&year=0&month=0&cweid=0&order=1&trc=9&sha=14fe55bfe41eaaaaca8e742bde18bc6938f88a3e

Maybe you should have read the entries in the link you posted

Flatpak currently has a 7.2 vulnerability that has gone unaddressed since 2017.

Text about the 7.2 vulnerability from 2017:

In Flatpak before 0.8.7

That version was tagged in git on July 20th, 2017