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Unfolding now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39865810

- https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4
- https://github.com/tukaani-project/xz/commit/cf44e4b7f5dfdbf8c78aef377c10f71e274f63c0

An incredibly technically complex #backdoor in xz (potentially also in libarchive and elsewhere) was just discovered. This backdoor has been quietly implemented over years, with the assistance of a wide array of subtly interconnected accounts:

- https://github.com/tukaani-project/xz/commit/ee44863ae88e377a5df10db007ba9bfadde3d314
- https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1067708
- https://github.com/jamespfennell/xz/pull/2

The timeline on this is going to take so long to unravel

#security #linux

This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to Evan Boehs

https://boehs.org/node/everything-i-know-about-the-xz-backdoor

I have begun a post explaining this situation in a more detailed writeup. This is updating in realtime, and there is a lot still missing.

#security #xz #linux

This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to Evan Boehs

I really hope that this causes an industry-wide reckoning with the common practice of letting your entire goddamn product rest on the shoulders of one overworked person having a slow mental health crisis without financially or operationally supporting them whatsoever. I want everyone who has an open source dependency to read this message https://www.mail-archive.com/xz-devel@tukaani.org/msg00567.html
in reply to Glyph

"I never thought a sophisticated APT would backdoor *my* volunteer-maintained infrastructure that I got for free" sobs entire industry who voted for the "volunteer-maintained infrastructure that I get for free with no defense against sophisticated APTs" party