[criddell]

On Linux, would something like Snap or Flatpak have protected them? It seems nuts that a random executable should have access to the password service.

[embedding-shape]

Ultimately it depends on the exact mechanism here, maybe the tool/README said "Run sudo ./setup-deps" and they followed it, or something similar, not sure any sort of software isolation would have helped at that point.

[Gigachad]

Yes if the flatpak sandboxing is enabled. A flatpak can just request access to anything, the software store thing shows a bunch of scary warnings when they do this but many users probably ignore them.