Recently, there has been a lot of confusion about what the ‘Canvas virus’ is and i want to clear that confusion away by making this topic.
Most confusion comes from copy/pasted warnings in the comments section of projects (mostly featured ones)
Here is one example:
SCRATCHERS BEWARE, A group of hackers has created malware that we have dubbed ‘the canvas’ virus. The ‘Canvas’ virus lurks inside of projects of the infected, it tells you to ‘see inside’ and open the backdrop editor. DO NOT DO THIS, You will receive a message alerting you that you've been hacked, and will be signed out of your account. Your projects will be replaced with the infection and your profile description changes. Be safe, stay alert, and report. Copy and paste" SPREAD THE WORD!!
The comments give already sort of an answer about the situation, but it's still very vague and that copy/pasting is mostly used to spread misinformation.

The ‘virus’ actually explained
So, it's actually not a virus, but a vulnerability/exploit that has affected many Scratchers.
It works by going into the project editor (or clicking ‘see inside’) and then going to the costume/backdrop editor. When you open it, the costumes can actually do Arbitrary Code Excecution, which is a way that code can be excecuted. In the desktop/offline editors, it's even worse because then they can run malicious shell programs and steal data from you! And this is not a theoretical possibility, it has already affected multiple Scratchers.

What it can do
It can delete and/or hack all projects, change the description of the victim's profile, comments things on the victim's profile without their concent and run malware (only on desktop/offline editors).

How to prevent it
Don't open suspicious projects asked by others to open and avoid any random links.
If you did get hacked: Unshare all projects, change your password and delete any comments that you didn't type ASAP.

Here is a blog post by GarboMuffin that also explains it.

If you have something to add or a suggestion for this topic, then reply down below!

All credits to @ScodexPerson

Does it infect outside of scratch?

aaruyogi wrote:

Does it infect outside of scratch?

It steals your account and your email, but I don't think it acts out of scratch

Ok Thank you

aaruyogi wrote:

Ok Thank you

Share the link of the topic !

Ok!

hi guys! thx 4 letting us know it really helps.

Peanut_Mew wrote:

hi guys! thx 4 letting us know it really helps.

All credits to ScodexPerson

ALL THAT GOT HACKED!!! go to the bottom of the page, click on “help center”, then say that u got hacked

redcheetahx wrote:

ALL THAT GOT HACKED!!! go to the bottom of the page, click on “help center”, then say that u got hacked

This topic isn't hacked !

Who would even fall for it tho

Milan092 wrote:

Who would even fall for it tho

What do you mean ?

You just copy/pasted my topic.
Reporting to be closed…
Although you did give credit, don't copy/paste topics.

ScodexPerson wrote:

You just copy/pasted my topic.
Reporting to be closed…
Although you did give credit, don't copy/paste topics.

The other topic was closed. I'm really sorry.

Plus, the copypastas on the trending page are people who have never been hit with the “virus”, so therefore, they should not be the ones “informing” us about something which most people don't truly understand until it happens to them.

I stumbled on a project that was asking me to go to the backdrop editor to view a meme, so I signed out and checked to see if this was a hacked project. Sure enough, it crashed my PC. Quite a few others fell for it but unfortunately, they did not sign out before checking. They lost their projects and they let us know in the comments.

Something I noticed (or at least something that happened to me) was that my PC went dark for around half a second and then came back and I was sent back to the homepage, still signed out. Plus, around 20% my battery was drained which is something I still don't understand.

This is a very confusing situation and I hope this can be solved soon.

Until then, just don't look at any backdrops.

JOIN NOW!

ShinyZeraora37 wrote:

Plus, the copypastas on the trending page are people who have never been hit with the “virus”, so therefore, they should not be the ones “informing” us about something which most people don't truly understand until it happens to them.

I stumbled on a project that was asking me to go to the backdrop editor to view a meme, so I signed out and checked to see if this was a hacked project. Sure enough, it crashed my PC. Quite a few others fell for it but unfortunately, they did not sign out before checking. They lost their projects and they let us know in the comments.

Something I noticed (or at least something that happened to me) was that my PC went dark for around half a second and then came back and I was sent back to the homepage, still signed out. Plus, around 20% my battery was drained which is something I still don't understand.

This is a very confusing situation and I hope this can be solved soon.

Until then, just don't look at any backdrops.

JOIN NOW!

I wanted people to have a more precise description than spammed messages and can discuss about it.

Faucon16 wrote:

ShinyZeraora37 wrote:

Plus, the copypastas on the trending page are people who have never been hit with the “virus”, so therefore, they should not be the ones “informing” us about something which most people don't truly understand until it happens to them.

I stumbled on a project that was asking me to go to the backdrop editor to view a meme, so I signed out and checked to see if this was a hacked project. Sure enough, it crashed my PC. Quite a few others fell for it but unfortunately, they did not sign out before checking. They lost their projects and they let us know in the comments.

Something I noticed (or at least something that happened to me) was that my PC went dark for around half a second and then came back and I was sent back to the homepage, still signed out. Plus, around 20% my battery was drained which is something I still don't understand.

This is a very confusing situation and I hope this can be solved soon.

Until then, just don't look at any backdrops.

JOIN NOW!

I wanted people to have a more precise description than spammed messages and can discuss about it.

I bet if you throw them into a discussion about the situation, they would probably think we are speaking a different language.

JOIN NOW!!!

man this “project hacking” is giving me goosebumps. and plus this fake hacker is like “if i follow you your account will be hacked :00000” i think ceebee banned him but who knows

Guys can somebody help me from @Cratey-DW on griffpatch prof he's bullying me he is picking on me becuase I am doing some spelling mistaked in scratch coz I am typing fast and he is picking on me coz I say u instead of u and then he is saying gramamr instead of grammar

TA19134 wrote:

Guys can somebody help me from @Cratey-DW on griffpatch prof he's bullying me he is picking on me becuase I am doing some spelling mistaked in scratch coz I am typing fast and he is picking on me coz I say u instead of u and then he is saying gramamr instead of grammar

I can help you