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After repeatedly suffering issues with scam apps making it onto the Snap Store, Canonical maker of Ubuntu Linux have now decided to manually look over submissions.

I've covered the issues with the Snap Store a few times now like on March 19th when ten scam crypto apps appeared, got taken down and then reappeared under a different publisher. Also earlier back in February there was an issue where a user actually lost their wallet as a result of a fake app. Multiple fake apps were also put up back in October last year as well, so it was a repeating issue that really needed dealing with properly.

So to try and do something about it, Canonical's Holly Hall has posted on their Discourse forum about how "The Store team and other engineering teams within Canonical have been continuously monitoring new snaps that are being registered, to detect potentially malicious actors" and that they will now do manual reviews whenever people try to register "a new snap name".

On top of that soon they will also be releasing a new policy regarding "crypto-wallet and other sensitive snaps" with "guidelines for how to publish such a snap". Currently all of this is not supposed to be long-term, as it's an evolving situation.

Hopefully this will begin to put an end to scam apps making it into the Snap Store and onto machines running Ubuntu and any other Linux distribution that enables Snap packages.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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21 comments
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Szkodnix Mar 28
Took them long enough
popey Mar 28
Finally.
Linux_Rocks Mar 28
elmapul Mar 28
"Canonical maker of Ubuntu Linux have now decided to manually look over submissions."
wait isnt that the reason why we have repos in the first place?
if no one is looking at the code what is the point?
Kimyrielle Mar 28
I guess curated app-stores are more secure if they're actually curated?
I still don't understand why anyone would expect things to do with crypto not to steal your money. Seems like normal expected behaviour to me.
pete910 Mar 28
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Or all the distros could just go back to ya know, the method of the signed packages it the repos

Instead of reinventing the wheel three times !
pilk Mar 28
I'm glad they're finally doing this, but this should've been implemented, at the very least, after the first time this happened.
redneckdrow Mar 28
Quoting: pete910Or all the distros could just go back to ya know, the method of the signed packages it the repos

Instead of reinventing the wheel three times !

Amen! Amen! Amen!

Now, to paraphrase from that movie, I need to get some food in my Methodist stomach!
Quoting: pilkI'm glad they're finally doing this, but this should've been implemented, at the very least, after the first time this happened.
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