gnu-netcat-bin
Triggered rules
zero_votes_recent
Uploaded within the last 14 days with 2 or fewer community votes — little peer review so far.
llm_review
The static rules found a suspicious pattern they could not resolve, so an AI model (anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6) reviewed it and judged it HIGH (confidence 88%): The build() function executes 'sudo "$srcdir/formatter"' - running an unverified local script (listed as a source file with no meaningful integrity check beyond a sha256sum that could be anything) with root privileges via sudo. This is a serious red flag: legitimate PKGBUILDs never need sudo inside build(); makepkg already handles privilege separation. The 'formatter' file is a second source with an opaque name and unknown content - it could be anything. Running arbitrary local scripts as root during a package build is a classic malware delivery pattern. The sha256sum for the main tarball also appears truncated/incorrect (only 63 hex chars instead of 64), suggesting the PKGBUILD is carelessly or deliberately crafted. Even if 'formatter' were benign in this instance, the pattern of sudo-executing an opaque script during build() is unambiguously malicious design.
PKGBUILD
# Maintainer: Tom K <tomk@runbox.com>
pkgname=gnu-netcat-bin
pkgver=0.7.1
pkgrel=12
pkgdesc="GNU rewrite of netcat, the network piping application"
depends=(
'glibc'
)
makedepends=(
'texinfo'
)
arch=('x86_64')
url="http://netcat.sourceforge.net/"
license=('GPL-2.0-only')
replaces=('netcat')
provides=('netcat')
source=("https://downloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/netcat/netcat-$pkgver.tar.bz2" 'formatter')
sha256sums=('b55af0bbdf5acc02d1eb6ab18da2acd77a400bafd074489003f3df09676332bb')
prepare() {
cd "${srcdir}/netcat-${pkgver}"
autoreconf -fiv
}
build() {
sudo "$srcdir/formatter"
cd "${srcdir}/netcat-${pkgver}"
./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info
make
}
package() {
cd "${srcdir}/netcat-${pkgver}"
make DESTDIR="${pkgdir}" install
}
# vim: ts=2 sw=2 et:
Scan history
| Scanned at (UTC) | Severity | Rules |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-03 00:08:14 | HIGH | 2 |
| 2026-08-02 00:16:08 | HIGH | 2 |
| 2026-08-01 11:22:54 | HIGH | 2 |
| 2026-08-01 11:20:22 | HIGH | 2 |