windscribe-beta-bin

MEDIUM

maintainer orphaned 3 votes scanned 2026-09-17 00:27:14.276658

View on AUR

Why flagged

The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt x86_64 .deb binary from 'deploy.totallyacdn.com', which is Windscribe's own CDN (totallyacdn.com is a known Windscribe-operated CDN domain used for their official desktop app distribution). However, the checksum is set to 'SKIP', meaning there is no integrity verification of the downloaded binary. This is a real supply-chain concern: even if the host is legitimate, skipping the checksum means a MITM attack, CDN compromise, or silent binary swap would go undetected. The package installs a full VPN client binary with a systemd service and polkit policy (privileged components), so the impact of a tampered binary would be significant. The host itself appears to be the official Windscribe CDN rather than a random personal host, which reduces (but does not eliminate) the risk. The combination of an executed binary with no integrity check warrants a medium rating.

Triggered rules

Medium source=() URL on a non-standard host source_untrusted_domain

One or more source=() URLs point to a host outside the trusted allowlist (github.com, gitlab.com, codeberg.org, pypi.org, …).

PKGBUILD:18 source=("https://deploy.totallyacdn.com/desktop-apps/2.5.18/windscribe_2.5.18_amd64.deb")

Medium AI review llm_review

An AI model (anthropic/claude-4.6-sonnet-20260217) reviewed this and agrees it is MEDIUM (confidence 82%): The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt x86_64 .deb binary from 'deploy.totallyacdn.com', which is Windscribe's own CDN (totallyacdn.com is a known Windscribe-operated CDN domain used for their official desktop app distribution). However, the checksum is set to 'SKIP', meaning there is no integrity verification of the downloaded binary. This is a real supply-chain concern: even if the host is legitimate, skipping the checksum means a MITM attack, CDN compromise, or silent binary swap would go undetected. The package installs a full VPN client binary with a systemd service and polkit policy (privileged components), so the impact of a tampered binary would be significant. The host itself appears to be the official Windscribe CDN rather than a random personal host, which reduces (but does not eliminate) the risk. The combination of an executed binary with no integrity check warrants a medium rating.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted

      1# Maintainer: Nik Rozman <admin[at]piskot[dot]si>
    
      2# Maintainer: Windscribe Limited <hello[at]windscribe[dot]com>
    
      3# Contributor: Nik Rozman <admin[at]piskot[dot]si>
    
      4# Contributor: Windscribe Limited <hello[at]windscribe[dot]com>
    
      5
    
      6pkgname=windscribe-beta-bin
    
      7pkgver=2.5.18
    
      8pkgrel=1
    
      9pkgdesc="Windscribe Beta Client"
    
      10arch=('x86_64')
    
      11url="https://windscribe.com/download"
    
      12license=('GPL2')
    
      13depends=('nftables' 'c-ares' 'qt5-svg' 'freetype2' 'hicolor-icon-theme' 'curl' 'systemd')
    
      14conflicts=('windscribe-cli' 'windscribe-bin')
    
      15provides=('windscribe')
    
      16options=('!strip' '!emptydirs')
    
      17install=${pkgname}.install
    
      18source=("https://deploy.totallyacdn.com/desktop-apps/2.5.18/windscribe_2.5.18_amd64.deb")
    
      19sha512sums=('SKIP')
    
      20
    
      21package(){
    
      22	# Extract package data
    
      23	tar xf data.tar.xz -C "${pkgdir}"
    
      24
    
      25	# Correct permissions
    
      26	chmod -R 755 "${pkgdir}"
    
      27
    
      28	# Point files to the correct location
    
      29	sed -i 's_/usr/local/windscribe_/opt/windscribe_g' ${pkgdir}/usr/share/applications/windscribe.desktop
    
      30	sed -i 's_/usr/local/windscribe_/opt/windscribe_g' ${pkgdir}/etc/systemd/system/windscribe-helper.service
    
      31	sed -i 's_/usr/local/windscribe_/opt/windscribe_g' ${pkgdir}/usr/polkit-1/actions/com.windscribe.authhelper.policy
    
      32
    
      33	# Move files to correct location
    
      34	mkdir -p "${pkgdir}/opt/windscribe"
    
      35	mv "${pkgdir}/usr/local/windscribe" "${pkgdir}/opt/"
    
      36
    
      37	# Install license
    
      38	install -D -m644 "${pkgdir}/opt/windscribe/open_source_licenses.txt" "${pkgdir}/usr/share/licenses/${pkgname}/LICENSE"
    
      39}

Scan history

Scanned at (UTC)	Severity	Rules
2026-09-17 00:27:14	Medium	2
2026-09-16 00:03:17	Medium	2
2026-09-15 00:25:31	Medium	2
2026-09-14 00:27:57	Medium	2
2026-09-13 00:19:54	Medium	2
2026-09-12 00:25:17	Medium	2
2026-09-11 00:19:22	Medium	2
2026-09-10 00:22:44	Medium	2
2026-09-09 00:04:09	Medium	2
2026-09-08 00:18:08	Medium	2
2026-09-07 00:30:15	Medium	2
2026-09-06 00:17:06	Medium	2
2026-09-05 00:16:27	Medium	2
2026-09-04 00:03:13	Medium	2
2026-09-03 00:15:47	Medium	2
2026-09-02 00:02:31	Medium	2
2026-09-01 00:11:19	Medium	2
2026-08-31 00:19:57	Medium	2
2026-08-30 00:04:14	Medium	2
2026-08-29 00:29:17	Medium	2