"Supply Chain Attack: Major Linux Distributions Impacted by XZ Utils Backdoor"

A supply chain attack involving backdoored versions of the XZ Utils data compression library has impacted major Linux distributions. According to Andres Freund, a Microsoft software engineer who discovered the backdoor, the malicious code was introduced in the tarball download package for XZ Utils version 5.6.0, which was released in February 2024. Version 5.6.1 was released shortly after, with updated malicious code that included more obfuscation and fixes for errors that occurred in some configurations. The backdoor interferes with authentication in sshd via systemd, getting into the service that enables remote access to systems over the SSH protocol. Attackers could break sshd authentication and gain access to the system. This article continues to discuss the discovery of malicious code embedded in the XZ Utils data compression library used in many Linux distributions.

SecurityWeek reports "Supply Chain Attack: Major Linux Distributions Impacted by XZ Utils Backdoor"

Submitted by grigby1