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What we know about the xz Utils backdoor that almost infected the world (arstechnica.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago (8 children)

Specifically, SSH logins were consuming too many CPU cycles and were generating errors with valgrind, a utility for monitoring computer memory.

Through sheer luck and Freund’s careful eye, he eventually discovered the problems were the result of updates that had been made to xz Utils. On Friday, Freund took to the Open Source Security List to disclose the updates were the result of someone intentionally planting a backdoor in the compression software.

It is lucky that Andres Freund checked and found the issue in valgrind that was maybe intentionally or maybe unintentionally.

https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4

I'm interested in figuring out what happened and more information on the contributor behind the attack.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

to me: the most chilling thing is that someone involved in the open source ecosystem introduced this vulnerability and, if it was intentional, what else did they do?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's what I'm most curious about. Was it government? Was it Microsoft, Apple or Google? Was it some lone hacker or group looking for money? Was it just an OSS developer that wanted revenge? It would make for a spicy story.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

It looks like a state actor, but hard to tell who. The way they did it was by bullying the original overworked maintainer into making someone else a co-maintainer, and that new co-maintainer introduced the backdoor. The accounts that pressured him into adding another maintainer all appear to have been sock puppets.

It just shows how little support there is for the lone maintainers of basic utilities that we all use, and it's really something we need to do something about.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

It isn't if it was intentional. It was intentional. Otherwise the exploit chain wouldn't be so convoluted.

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