IF you use Kodi beware

[GreyGeek]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/window...ining-malware/

ESET researchers say they found malicious code hidden in some of the add-ons found on three add-on repositories known as Bubbles, Gaia, and XvBMC, all offline at the time of writing, after receiving copyright infringement complaints.


Researchers said that some of the add-ons found on these repositories would contain malicious code that triggered the download of a second Kodi add-on, which, in turn, would contain code to fingerprint the user's OS and later install a cryptocurrency miner.



While Kodi can run on various platforms, ESET says that the operators of this illicit cryptocurrency mining operation only delivered a miner for Windows and Linux user

[vinnywright]

wile I do have kodi installed I do not think I used those repos , in fact I never added any extra repos at all .

VINNY

[GreyGeek]

wile I do have kodi installed I do not think I used those repos , in fact I never added any extra repos at all .

VINNY

How does it work for you? Will it connect to TV stations on the Internet or do you just use it to watch movies you've dl'd to your servers?

[claydoh]

A huge number of external Kodi repos are for streaming movies and TV shows, illegally of course, and of dubious quality and safeness. Gives Kodi a bad name. Luckily only those who use such crap addons are affected.

You have to either have purposefully added these repos, or installed one of the many rogue clones of Kodi for PC or Android, etc, with the express intent of streaming or downloading illegally to get hit by this, so.......no big deal, imnsho.

I have Kodi on my Android TV box, I am not worried at all about this. I can't get hit by this, even by accident since I don't use these random, unknown repos.


https://kodi.tv/addons

[Rod J]

I've used Kodi just about every day for quite some time now.

When I first installed it I did get a bit carried away with all the extra add-ons, most of which either didn't work or I didn't find much of interest. For example, I tried the YouTube addon, but honestly it's easier to use YouTube via a browser than the addon in Kodi. I had a lot of trouble with Kodi crashing frequently for a long time and in trying to get some stability in Kodi I removed almost all the addons I had installed. Kodi has been much more stable lately. I've got the version "Kodi from Debian" 17.6 installed.

There are a heap of add-ons available so I guess it's not surprising the malware vendors have been busy trying to use any Kodi exploits.

I use Kodi to watch TV series I download from other sources external to Kodi. I find TV On Demand streaming works better via my browser (Chrome).

[Rod J]

I'm very impressed with Kodi, I always wanted to try out HTPC software. I have it installed here in K18.04 and on my old HP SFF PC connected to my TV. Here's a screenshot for those who don't know much about Kodi--

[GreyGeek]

mmm... I may have to give it a shot. I have a Roku TV that features Pluto.TV. I also have Pluto.TV on my iPHone 6+. Looks like I'll be adding it to my Bionic, AFTER I take a snapshot.

[kc1di]

Thanks GG for the warning, I don't a present use Kodi , but good info to know

[GreyGeek]

mmm... I may have to give it a shot. I have a Roku TV that features Pluto.TV. I also have Pluto.TV on my iPHone 6+. Looks like I'll be adding it to my Bionic, AFTER I take a snapshot.

Well, I took my snapshots and then installed Kodi. First off, I don't have a TV chip in my laptop but I installed several PDV's related to Internet TV watching, etc, including Pluto.TV, which offers several hundred channels.

I then tried Pluto.TV, which didn't go well. "See the logs" for an explanation of why Pluto.TV didn't connect. The logs didn't say anything significant.

I added Kahn Acadamy, YouTube, NASA and some EarthCam add-ons. All of those worked nicely except NASA, but I don't need Kodi to watch them because my browser does just fine.

I could have used muon to purge Kodi and the couple dozen auxiliary utilities and libraries it supplied, but purging doesn't remove config files or that extra Video subdirectory that Kodi adds during the install.

So, I took about three minutes to roll back to the snapshots I took before I installed Kodi. Everything is well in the garden!

[MoonRise]

I've used it for the last 3 to 4 years now. No issues here. I agree with Vinny though. I use what is OotB. No extra add-ons.