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.
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?
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.
It isn’t if it was intentional. It was intentional. Otherwise the exploit chain wouldn’t be so convoluted.
At the moment, it’s unknown if there was ever a real-world person behind this username or if Jia Tan is a completely fabricated individual.
Well, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a platypus. There was definitely one or more real-world people behind this. I doubt anyone thinks that their name is actually Jia Tan, though.
The industry has too long neglected the true threat posed to information security by the platypi.
Platypodes
Platypoodles
Dammit, this attacker is sounding more and more adorable!
Incredible, just incredible. I am looking forward to the upcoming time when we know more about exactly how it works.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
They were likely very close to seeing the backdoor update merged into Debian and Red Hat, the two biggest distributions of Linux, when an eagle-eyed software developer spotted something fishy.
Andres Freund, a developer and engineer working on Microsoft’s PostgreSQL offerings, was recently troubleshooting performance problems a Debian system was experiencing with SSH, the most widely used protocol for remotely logging in to devices over the Internet.
Through a combination of 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.
Malicious code added to xz Utils versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1 modified the way the software functions when performing operations related to lzma compression or decompression.
For instance, Tan replaced Collins’ contact information with their own on oss-fuzz, a project that scans open source software for vulnerabilities that can be exploited.
The original article contains 640 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
How quickly was it caught?
After a month from what I read, most distro hadn’t included it yet
Edit: it had been prepped for 2 years or so and the malicious code was introduced a while ago, but from release it took about a month to detection
