Yes, Linux distributions don't have protection against malicious software. If you downloaded thrid-party program and run it, it can read everything from your ho

Yes, Linux distributions don't have protection against malicious software. If you downloaded thrid-party program and run it, it can read everything from your home directory, including cookies and browser history, it can inject itself into browser process, it can see everything you type. And if you decided to add third-party apt repository, for example, to use Node.JS or VS Code, you give permanent root access to the owner of repository. Also, some third-party .deb packages (for example, Slack) automatically add their repository and public key to apt sources list upon installation. For example, there is a third-party repository, that allows installing multiple versions of PHP in Debian. This repository replaces cryptographic libraries provided by Debian with its own ones (you can see those packages here: https://packages.sury.org/php/pool/main/o/openssl/ https://packages.sury.org/php/pool/main/o/openssl/ ) Also, in Linux unprivileged program, run under "nobody" account, can read all unique hardware identifiers like MAC address, HDD serial number etc.