When the xz backdoor was discovered, I quickly uninstalled my Arch based setup with an infected version of the software and switched to a distro that shipped an older version (5.5 or 5.4 or something). I found an article which said that in 5.6.1-3 the backdoor was “fixed” by just not letting the malware part communicating with the vulnerable ssh related stuff and the actual malware is still there? (I didn’t understand 80% of the technical terms and abbreviations in it ok?) Like it still sounds kinda dangerous to me, especially since many experts say that we don’t know the other ways this malware can use (except for the ssh supply chain) yet. Is it true? Should I stick with the new distro for now or can I absolutely safely switch back and finally say that I use Arch btw again?
P. S. I do know that nothing is completely safe. Here I’m asking just about xz and libxzlk or whatever the name of that library is
EDIT: 69 upvotes. Nice
Responsabilidade ( @BaalInvoker@lemmy.eco.br ) 97•3 months agoArch wasn’t affected at all, cause the backdoor trigger was only on deb and rpm distros.
However it still a good practice to update your system and leave this version behind. Anyway, Arch already updated and is no longer distributing the backdoor version, therefore 5.6.1-3 is safe
You can use Arch btw again. Actually, you never had to leave it at first
thingsiplay ( @thingsiplay@beehaw.org ) 4•3 months agoI see what you did there.
Responsabilidade ( @BaalInvoker@lemmy.eco.br ) 3•3 months agoWhat I did there? o.O
I don’t even know
thingsiplay ( @thingsiplay@beehaw.org ) 7•3 months agoOh, I thought the “You can use Arch btw again.” is a play on the “I use Arch, BTW.”-meme. :D It’s even better, because this was not intentional I guess.
Responsabilidade ( @BaalInvoker@lemmy.eco.br ) 3•3 months agoAh! Okay…
Well, it was intentionally xD
But I didn’t thought it would be a funny pun hahaha
Anyway, I did it mostly because the OP also did
thingsiplay ( @thingsiplay@beehaw.org ) 3•3 months agoI see. But yours was a little bit more sneaky. And I loved it.
I know that Arch wasn’t affected but it’s only true for the known ssh backdoor. Afaik that thing can contain 100+ more “viruses” in it that we don’t yet know about. And btw I was using a distro that was quite a bit different to Arch (no, not Manjaro) so idk if it was any safer than Debian sid
Responsabilidade ( @BaalInvoker@lemmy.eco.br ) 16•3 months agoWell, until someone find a new backdoor, I call it safe again
I’ll not lose my mental health to a potentially and unknown shady backdoor that could be installed or not in a lib
Well, I have a polar opposite opinion about that lol. I guess I should stick with the old version
4am ( @4am@lemm.ee ) 15•3 months agoWhat about all the unknown back doors in the old versions 👻
Strit ( @Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show ) 15•3 months agoIf you worry about potential other backdoors in newer XZ versions, then you should also look into your kernel, systemd, dbus etc etc. All these things, can potentially contain backdoors that no one knows about yet.
As for currently known backdoors, the Arch versions are safe.
Of course backdoors can be anywhere. I was worried about this one especially because somewhere I read that the malicious code wasn’t removed but just restricted with some hacky stuff in 5.6.1-3. It turned out to be false, at least for Arch, so, in case the new information is true, I can switch back I guess. Using a “safe” version of Arch is better than running all the apps as Flatpaks that can still have the infected version of xz libraries as dependencied anyways
Responsabilidade ( @BaalInvoker@lemmy.eco.br ) 4•3 months agoWell, I guess u have your answer, tho
The important thing here is to feel good with your decision
bizdelnick ( @bizdelnick@lemmy.ml ) 2•3 months agoSo you need to downgrade to even earlier version. Best of all, use a fork created by Joey Hess.
Does that require compiling Arch from source to avoid compatibility issues?
bizdelnick ( @bizdelnick@lemmy.ml ) 1•3 months agoI don’t know for sure, it depends on changes in the liblzma API. If there were any changes (backward compatible or not, usually nobody cares about forward compatibility), yes, recompiling is required.
Then it’s not for me. I can’t even write a Python script lol
pmk ( @pmk@lemmy.sdf.org ) 1•3 months agoThis is the reason I keep an OpenBSD system around. Maybe it’s a false sense of security, but I feel that they are pickier about the base system at least.
I have a question. Does BSD support any universal package formats?
pmk ( @pmk@lemmy.sdf.org ) 2•3 months agoAfaik, no. Worth mentioning is that the fundamental design of the major BSDs is to clearly separate the core OS from third party applications. But as far as just being able to use Flathub or similar, I don’t think so. If any BSD has experimented in that direction my bet would be FreeBSD.
I can’t use it then. I need some apps that are definitely not available natively on BSD. Thank you for the information though
DoingFedTime ( @DoingFedTime@scribe.disroot.org ) 1•3 months agoYou shouldn’t use a computer at all then, your CPU contains Intel and Amd undisclosed backdoor ;)
I know about that
DoingFedTime ( @DoingFedTime@scribe.disroot.org ) 1•2 months agoYou don’t, I’m not talking about Intel ME.
That’s the only thing, us the public know about.
Petter1 ( @Petter1@lemm.ee ) 5•3 months agoWell, we don’t really know if there are backdoors in the old version as well, applying your logic
I meant a little bit different thing. Someone already explained how the issue was fixed and it seems safe enough to me
ManniSturgis ( @ManniSturgis@lemmy.zip ) 28•3 months agoYou switched distros because of this? 😆
Yes
ManniSturgis ( @ManniSturgis@lemmy.zip ) 4•3 months agoWell, live and learn :)
unreliable ( @unreliable@discuss.tchncs.de ) 10•3 months agoThe back door was crafted to be used by a very specific encryption key. You are are vulnerable if the attackers are specifically targeting you. If you are a tangent of a nation, you should be worried:)
Well idk what “a tangent of a nation” means but I have political opinions very different to what my nation wants me to have so it might actually be a problem for me
520 ( @520@kbin.social ) 4•3 months agoWhat they mean is if you are a affiliated with a national government. You might also be a target if you are very very rich.
If you’re an average Joe, they probably won’t burn it on you.
The Doctor ( @drwho@beehaw.org ) English4•3 months agoIt’s already burned by being discovered.
And, never underestimate the utility of a large botnet.
ahal ( @ahal@lemmy.ca ) 1•3 months agoHe could be an average Joe who works in the IT department of a company a national government would be interested in.
unreliable ( @unreliable@discuss.tchncs.de ) 1•3 months agoI mean, appears a country is responsible for the attack after 2 years of preparation. If they don’t like you, probably was easy to send someone knock your door instead. Relax :)
Titou ( @Titou@feddit.de ) 5•3 months agoWhen i first heard of xz backdoor, i updated my arch system and the xz-utils package to 5.6.1-3 which in the version numbers seems to be a patch, and it seems to be, so think you’re safe from now
Quill0 ( @Quill0@lemmy.digitalfall.net ) English1•3 months agoDo you host anything on your network to tne internet that allows anyone ssh access to your computers? More simply do you have port 22 open on your router or firewall? If you don’t or said no, then don’t worry about it.
ssh was installed because it’s needed by one of the GNOME’s components (the keyring I think). ssdh was disabled the last time I looked at it though. But my router highly unfortunately uses stock proprietary firmware because I couldn’t get OpenWRT working on it. That thing can have all the ports opened lol