Jan Wildeboer 😷
Again the FOSS world has proven to be vigilant and proactive in finding bugs and backdoors, IMHO. The level of transparency is stellar, especially compared to proprietary software companies. What the FOSS world has accomplished in 24 hours after detection of the backdoor code in #xz deserves a moment of humbleness. Instead we have flamewars and armchair experts shouting that we must change everything NOW. Which would introduce even more risks. Progress is made iteratively. Learn, adapt, repeat.
Just FTR. The backdoor code was inserted only under very specific circumstances in the build process. Once the problem was identified and after initial analysis made it clear how it worked, immediate action was taken in a coordinated fashion. Affected builds/packages were removed, update systems for affected distributions started delivering forced downgrades. Users of these systems were informed. This all happened in public, in transparent and open ways. All in the first 24 hours. I tip my hat.
Now the mess is being cleaned up. AFAICS this exploit was NOT used in the wild by bad actors. So it wasn't even a 0day. The damage is limited, contained and being taken care of. In a coordinated way, across communities, companies and more organisations. Because we were prepared for the aftermath. We have learned form Heartbleed and other events. Our FOSS immune system works. And will learn from this incident. Peace.
For the impact on #Fedora, please follow the developing story at https://fedoramagazine.org/cve-2024-3094-security-alert-f40-rawhide/ - That's the transparency and openness I am talking about.
CVE-2024-3094: Urgent alert for Fedora Linux 40 and Rawhide users - Fedora Magazine
Summary: The latest versions of the “xz” tools and libraries contain malicious code that appears to be intended to allow unauthorized access. Specifically, this code is present in versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1 of the libraries. Fedora Linux 40 users may have received version 5.6.0, depending on the timing of system updates. Fedora Rawhide users may have received version 5.6.0 or 5.6.1.
This #xz backdoor is tracked as CVE-2024-3094 and this CVE was opened by #RedHat. You can find our data on this at https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-3094 If you search for "CVE-2024-3094" with the search engine of your choice you will find a growing list of references (and clickbait stories) of which https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-3094 is a bit more relevant as it contains a long list of links to more news and background. The thread that started it all is at https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4
The FAQ is at https://gist.github.com/thesamesam/223949d5a074ebc3dce9ee78baad9e27
I will let this tread rest for a while, as IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) everything we know ATM (At This Moment) is documented in the links I provided and besides making sure our machines have been updated (more precise: downgraded the xz package) there is not much we can do. I will NOT participate in speculations and potentially harmful spreading of rumours. And now I will be taking care of other things on this beautiful day. Thank you all for taking your time to read and comment!
#xz #liblzma backdoor/exploit, CVE-2024-3094
Short update: the best source for up2date information on the history, analysis, fallout and moving forward is now https://gist.github.com/thesamesam/223949d5a074ebc3dce9ee78baad9e27
As expected, a lot of motivated but not well-informed or qualified people in the comments are adding fuel to a fire that is effectively under control and almost extinguished, so when you read that FAQ, please ignore most of the comments under it.
CartyBoston"Please Ignore Most of the Comments" is an anthem for our time.
samThank you!
I did consider trying to moderate the comments but github gists are not ideal for this, and I realised it would both end up upsetting people and waste time.
I am trying to ask for calm when things look heated but otherwise decided to just leave it be. Universal law of comment sections...
@thesamesam You are doing a fantastic job with your FAQ and calm approach. My only little bit of advice would be to mark the newest changes with some kind of markup, so repeat readers get some visual indication of what's changed. But that's only for people that don't know how to use the diff function (which is a lot of the superficial people ;)
@jwildeboer Thank you! I will try implement this :)
Michael McCune ☮️@jwildeboer hope you enjoy the day =)
phoenix🐧🏕🏞🚀🍝@jwildeboer even more, 1000 eyes are now focussing on the wound, looking for damages and other infections. 1000 eyes that would otherwise do other things are focussing on the one wound, so it can heal.
Once a problem has been identified, the self-healing capabilities are typically given. This is the resilience that is needed for survival. And it is there.
That's the open-source spirit, and it is awesome 🤘👍
Joe Brockmeier (@jzb)@jwildeboer yes… but. I’m now wondering if there are other instances we haven’t caught, or caught yet. Seems optimistic to assume that we’ve spotted a solitary instance of a very sophisticated approach to sneaking in back doors.
At a minimum, it might be time to revisit the practice of key signing parties and doing more to vet contributors.
@jzb What I am trying to say is that there are two sides here. Solving and cleaning up after it happened is #1. That is what I am talking about. #2, what you mention, is how to harden the FOSS ecosystem proactively to reduce the risk of stuff "hiding in plain sight" in FOSS. That's a far wider field with many more unknowns.
We just shouldn't mix the two things because that leads to open ending arguments and not to solutions, IMHO.
Crissi (they/fae/she)@jwildeboer @jzb The most important point I read (not sure which of the links was it that linked a mastodon post) was about how this whole situation was driven by developer burnout basically. I don't know how, but we need to find a way to better take care of our deer FOSS devs so they don't burn out and give their project to a malicious actor out of sheer desperation.
Markus Feilner (has moved)@jwildeboer Another great example for the Power of #opensource.
MylesRydenI agree with you. I am no expert in cyber security, but it does seem that people reacted quickly, but reasonably to this issue. Yes, "it shouldn't have been able to happen, yada yada yada" but we have to understand that everything digital can be hacked and reverse engineered.
I think the smart people in FOSS did a good job.
Andi Barth@jwildeboer I'm pretty sure we (as the FOSS community) will learn many things from this. However, whoever is shouting now is probably not part of any of the useful learning efforts (and breaking of the toolchains for some 'tick in the box'-results for a nice powerpoint slide is never a priority or even goal; and especially now the first priority is making sure we don't have any malicious (binary) code in our tool chain). And yes, it's impressive how fast the FOSS found out and mitigated issues.
Albert ARIBAUD Ⓜ@jwildeboer As far as xz is concerned, there was indeed vigilance and proactivity. Less so in the case of libarchive, though, where the backdoor remained unnoticed from 2021 until now.
(not pointing fingers though, as it's not the first case of a vulnerability remaining present for years, and also as I do not have the street cred to do finger pointing as far as security goes)
Nik | Klampfradler 🎸🚲Don't forget highlighting how Microsoft is actively fighting this transparency.
R. L. Dane 
This, but with more ranting, please.
(So I don't have to be the one doing the ranting about GH, for once. My GH account is "githubisviolatingthegpl," for goodness' sake. (and it doesn't host anything))
🐈⬛David Sommerseth@nik You do know that @AndresFreundTec who discovered this is a Microsoft employee?
Hama Barhamou@jwildeboer
"Progress is made iteratively. Learn , adapt, repeat."
agree with you
Luc@jwildeboer
> deserves a moment of humbleness. Instead we have flamewars and armchair experts shouting that we must change everything
You're the second person posting a sentiment like this, that I've seen, but the actual flamewars seem to elude me. Getting kinda curious what y'all are on about
@luc @jwildeboer if you are really curious, this is one of the not so nice exchanges I have seen
also on some github I think I saw some racism against chinese people
edit I just realized I linked the wrong post lmao, it was this one:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39865810
but tbh, especially on mastodon I see very little what could be categorized "flame wars" but I am only a few hours into researching this
Leonardo Ferreira Fontenelle@jwildeboer reminds me of when some version of Windows had three backdoors: one accidental, another created by Microsoft for the CIA, and another one created by an infiltrated CIA agent
highvoltage@jwildeboer Absolutely. I marvel at the prompt and efficient response by everyone involved. In the proprietary software world there would still be denial that there even is a problem.
liberloebi 📖@jwildeboer Thanks, Jan, I couldn't agree more