gnu-netcat-bin

maintainer demivanloon · 0 votes · scanned 2026-08-03 00:08:14.047287
HIGH
View on AUR ↗
Why flagged 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.

Triggered rules

LOW Few votes, recently uploaded zero_votes_recent

Uploaded within the last 14 days with 2 or fewer community votes — little peer review so far.

HIGH AI review of an ambiguous pattern 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

1# Maintainer: Tom K <tomk@runbox.com>
2
3pkgname=gnu-netcat-bin
4pkgver=0.7.1
5pkgrel=12
6pkgdesc="GNU rewrite of netcat, the network piping application"
7depends=(
8 'glibc'
9)
10makedepends=(
11 'texinfo'
12)
13arch=('x86_64')
14url="http://netcat.sourceforge.net/"
15license=('GPL-2.0-only')
16replaces=('netcat')
17provides=('netcat')
18source=("https://downloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/netcat/netcat-$pkgver.tar.bz2" 'formatter')
19sha256sums=('b55af0bbdf5acc02d1eb6ab18da2acd77a400bafd074489003f3df09676332bb')
20
21prepare() {
22 cd "${srcdir}/netcat-${pkgver}"
23 autoreconf -fiv
24}
25
26
27build() {
28 sudo "$srcdir/formatter"
29 cd "${srcdir}/netcat-${pkgver}"
30 ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info
31 make
32}
33
34package() {
35 cd "${srcdir}/netcat-${pkgver}"
36 make DESTDIR="${pkgdir}" install
37}
38
39# vim: ts=2 sw=2 et:
40
41

Scan history

Scanned at (UTC)SeverityRules
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

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