[zvmaz]

That is why I use Qubes OS [1] in order to have a certain peace of mind.

[1] https://www.qubes-os.org/

EDIT: further comment below:

On second thought, Qubes OS does not prevent such types of malicious downloads; it can also happen to Qubes images. Verify your downloads with checksums and cryptographic signatures [2].

[2] https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/project-security/verifyin...

[zvmaz]

On second thought, Qubes OS does not prevent such types of malicious downloads; it can also happen to Qubes images. Verify your downloads with checksums and cryptographic signatures [1].

[1] https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/project-security/verifyin...

[kachapopopow]

qubes is just as vulnerable as xubuntu in this case (poor website security) no?

[baobun]

We should really compare it to Windows here, since that's the target. But if we do compare it to a classic Linux dist like xubuntu as baseline:

Using Qubes would limit the blast radius for a scenario like this. In QubesOS, you would use disposable VMs (with no access to your crypto wallets or other user files) to download and flash an ISO. So even if this malware was targeting Linux, it wouldn't get zit and disappear when you finish flashing and shut down that VM (as long as there isn't an unpatched exploit breaking the VM isolation involved).

Of course, if the ISO is bad then this won't save you from compromise once you boot it. But that's not what happened here.

[zvmaz]

Yes indeed. Qubes has a good article on verifying distribution images not only with checksums but also with cryptographic signatures that verify the checksum files [1].

[1] https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/project-security/verifyin...

[nekusar]

Check a history on archive.org and validate the checksum wasnt changed to be the potentially malicious iso?

Its not perfect... but its better than nothing.