Run this secret update action and great things will happen

[Redsandro]

Every few days I get a strange request to run a certain action.
I would have to enter my password for that, and the dialog doesn't even sound like common password dialogs, so I don't trust this at all.

Is there a way I can see what it is actually trying to do? Can I see with my own eyes? It's hard to judge with the information provided alone.

ScreenshotMint01.png (14.31 KiB) Viewed 270 times

ScreenshotMint02.png (7.95 KiB) Viewed 270 times

[bigj231]

Is it automatic, or do you have to initiate it? If it's automatic, stay far away. I have no idea what it could be. Obviously, someone's trying to get your password. Could be malicious, it could be genuine. Did you install anything recently?

You could look in the output of the 'top' utility and see what programs are running when that opens. Then start killing the ones you aren't sure about until that window closes. Let us know what you find. you might also try installing

[Redsandro]

It comes automatically after booting every once in a while.

I don't see anything suspicious in top, and I install packages every now and then, but (almost) always from the default repo's.

You didn't finish your post though,

you might also try installing

try installing what?
I have ClamAV but haven't detected any virusses.

[zerozero]

i never saw any legitimate pkg/action asking for passphrase
can you (as accurately as possible) list those packages (and by packages i mean everything that you installed in the system) that you installed from outside the default repo?

you can also try rkhunter (it's on the repos)
see the documentation https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RKhunter

[garolou]

A 'passphrase' is not the same as the 'password' that you are probably asked for on a regular basis. I know of passphrase in one area only... Passphrases are optionaly set when creating keys. I'm no expert in this area, but have come across it when setting up public/private rsa key pairs for communicating without password to other computers on my network.
With the questionable terminal running, launch 'system monitor' and under the Processes tab look for a terminal icon probably identified as bash. Run your cursor over that line and a small popup should identify which application is running that terminal.
Hope this will give you some clues.

[thegreatgazoo]

Is this a fresh installation and did you encrypt your home directory?

This dialog shows up usually on your first boot asking you to create a paraphrase. You need this in case you forget your password.

Once you put in your password, it gives you a paraphrase that you need to save somewhere.

I haven't seem this at all in mate, and I do encrypt my home directory. I used to see our all the time on Ubuntu, but it has a description of what it was doing (not null)

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[Redsandro]

Yes, yes it's similar to that. However, I already have the key written down, so maybe I already had that dialog.

Either way, it's not supposed to say 'null'. I'm not gonna try this before I know what this is. Could be you're totally right and there's a little glitch causing the same dialog to appear without a description. But could just as well be a phishing attemt for my password.