Does Apache Netbeans still contain ransomware?

Question

Last night I installed Netbeans to check a school project I did years ago. It didn't seem to run so I tried uninstalling it but then Windows Defender popped up saying that a ransomware needed access to uninstall it completely, and blocking it would cancel the uninstallation. I clicked allow and uninstalled the IDE.

After that, I read that Github detected that ransomwares were in Netbeans in 2020. I want to know if this is still true up to now and if I'm the only one who's encountering this problem.

Answer 1

I think you have misunderstood the problem. From my reading, the problem wasn't ransomware in Netbeans itself. The problem was that ransomware was spreading via booby-trapped Netbeans projects that had been uploaded to Github.

Netbeans itself never contained any form of malware. Rather, the bad guys had found a way to propagate malware which involved Netbeans projects ... and developers not taking the appropriate steps to validate the projects they downloaded from Github.

There were a couple of significant vulnerabilities in Apache Netbeans (CVE-2019-17560, CVE-2020-11986) in the last couple of years. Both have been fixed. I have not seen any evidence (or claims of evidence) that these are in any way implicated in the above problem.

Having said that, if you are uncomfortable using Netbeans, use a different IDE.

Sources:

• StackOverflow Q&A - Does netbeans IDE contain a virus? ... which says this is a false positive in Windows Defender¹.
• GitHub warns Java developers about malware infecting NetBeans projects

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^{1 - Given that other AVs have been pinged for doing this to Netbeans, I am inclined to think that it was actually an inaccurate report, or report that a number of AV vendors misconstrued, that lead the them flag Netbeans as malware. Either way, you might want to check that your Windows Defender's database is up to date.}