If you have the Brave Browser installed on your Windows devices, then you may also have Brave VPN services installed on the machine. Brave installs these services without user consent on Windows devices.

Brave Firewall + VPN is an extra service that Brave users may subscribe to for a monthly fee. Launched in mid-2022, it is a cooperation between Brave Software, maker of Brave Browser, and Guardian, the company that operates the VPN and the firewall solution. The firewall and VPN solution is available for $9.99 per month.

  • calm.like.a.bomb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    OK… challenge accepted. Maybe you don’t know about systemd user services.

    Content of mytrojan.sh:

    #!/usr/bin/env bash
    
    echo "Writing the service unit file"
    
    cat > ~/.config/systemd/user/my_test_service.service << EOF
    [Unit]
    Description=Script Daemon For Test User Services
    
    [Service]
    Type=simple
    User=
    #Group=
    ExecStart=/home/user/bin/myscript.sh
    Restart=on-failure
    StandardOutput=file:%h/log_file
    
    [Install]
    WantedBy=default.target
    EOF
    
    echo "Reloading systemd for the user"
    systemctl --user daemon-reload || exit 1
    
    echo "Enabling and starting the service"
    systemctl --user enable --now my_test_service.service
    

    Content of myscript.sh:

    $ cat ~/bin/myscript.sh
    #!/usr/bin/env bash
    
    while true
    do
        now=$(date)
        me=$(whoami)
        echo "User $me at $now"
        sleep 10
    done
    

    Now run the script (mytrojan.sh) and check service status after that:

    $ ./mytrojan.sh
    Writing the service unit file
    Reloading systemd for the user
    Enabling and starting the service
    $ systemctl --user status my_test_service.service
    ● my_test_service.service - Script Daemon For Test User Services
         Loaded: loaded (/home/user/.config/systemd/user/my_test_service.service; enabled; vendor preset: ena>
         Active: active (running) since Thu 2023-10-19 12:15:21 EEST; 6s ago
       Main PID: 1666383 (myscript.sh)
          Tasks: 2 (limit: 18757)
         Memory: 556.0K
            CPU: 4ms
         CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/my_test_service.service
                 ├─1666383 /bin/bash /home/user/bin/myscript.sh
                 └─1666387 sleep 10
    
    Oct 19 12:15:21 tesla systemd[1866318]: Started Script Daemon For Test User Services
    
    • hottari@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      You failed. This requires the user to run a script aka manual intervention.

      • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Now imagine that the script is set to run as part of the brave installation - you type “yes” please download brave, brave installs brave and runs this script. Linux isn’t immune to malware as you seem to think.

        • hottari@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          You would need the power of root to do all these aforementioned things (run a VPN service).

          And am not saying that Linux is immune to malware, just that it’s not out of the norm to have package managers install services crucial for operation during installation. Since Windows doesn’t have package managers, I’m gonna replace package managers with packages in this reasoning.

        • hottari@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Maybe am ignorant but at least I understand the questions before I answer them.