this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
403 points (99.0% liked)

Linux

48054 readers
720 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

some people in my mastodon feed are suggesting that the backdoor might have connected out to malicious infrastructure or substituted its own SSH host keys, but I can't find any clear confirmation. More info as the investigation progresses.

I guess at this point if you're on Fedora 40 or rawhide clear / regen your host keys, even after xz version rollback

[–] Deathcrow@lemmy.ml 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

or substituted its own SSH host keys,

why would the backdoor do that? It would immediately expose itself because every ssh client on the planet warns about changed host keys when connecting.

[–] gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Perhaps it was a poorly worded way of suggesting that invalidating host keys would invalidate all client keys it could potentially generate? Either way it's a lot of speculation.

Resetting the keys and SSH config on any potentially compromised host is probably not a terrible idea

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If you are on a affected system I would nuke from orbit.

[–] gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Nuke from orbit might be an overreaction, if you need that machine perhaps disable ssh or turn the machine off until later next week when the postmortems happen. If you need that trusted machine now, then yes fresh install

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Honestly doing a fresh install is a good test of your recovery abilities. You should always have a way to restore critical content in an emergency

[–] afterthoughts@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I feel legitimately sorry for anyone who takes your rhetoric to heart.

Try not to let these 🧩's pull you down rabbit holes, guys.