diff --git a/.bin/etc-files-list-update/util/get-package-urls.sh b/.bin/etc-files-list-update/util/get-package-urls.sh
index 721c309f4..b5455bf72 100755
--- a/.bin/etc-files-list-update/util/get-package-urls.sh
+++ b/.bin/etc-files-list-update/util/get-package-urls.sh
@@ -1,10 +1,16 @@
 #!/bin/bash
+set -euo pipefail
 
 # get new package URLs
 # load the list of amd64 packages from ubuntu
 export dist="$(cat current_distro)"
 export repo="http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu"
+export url="$repo/dists/$dist/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz"
 
 # print URLs
-curl $repo/dists/$dist/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | \
-  gzip -d | awk '/^Filename: / { print ENVIRON["repo"] "/" $2 }'
+if ! data="$(curl -fsSL "$url")"; then
+  echo "[ERROR] The download of package lists from Ubuntu failed. The URL was: \"$url\". Either the server is down, or it's time to update the distro name in this file: \"SecLists/.bin/etc-files-list-update/current_distro\"" >&2
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+printf '%s' "$data" | gzip -d | awk -v repo="$repo" '/^Filename: / { print repo "/" $2 }'
\ No newline at end of file