this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
83 points (95.6% liked)

Explain Like I'm Five

14263 readers
298 users here now

Simplifying Complexity, One Answer at a Time!

Rules

  1. Be respectful and inclusive.
  2. No harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
  3. Engage in constructive discussions.
  4. Share relevant content.
  5. Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.
  6. Use appropriate language and tone.
  7. Report violations.
  8. Foster a continuous learning environment.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
sabbah@lemmy.world
AradFort@lemmy.world
rikudou@lemmings.world
Don_Dickle@lemmy.world
Rikudou_Sage@lemmy.world
83
ELI5: The Linux xz backdoor situation (pawb.social)
submitted 7 months ago by VinesNFluff@pawb.social to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

PLEASE. I keep seeing it in memes. As I understand it the latest version of the xz package (present in rolling release distros like Arch and SUSE Tumbleweed) has "a backdoor", but I have no earthly clue what can be done by malicious folks with access to that backdoor or if I should be afraid or how to check if my distro is compromised or how to prevent damage if it is or (...)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Ptsf@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

The backdoor was not contained within the source code, but within precompiled binary blobs sent "downstream" from the maintainer, this is often done so that end users get a leaner version of the software without development tool chains attached, which also makes automated checking of these blobs difficult to impossible so instead we rely on verified and trusted upstream maintainers to be "good actors". That's the reason this is such a big wakeup call, as it's a maintainer that worked on projects and waited for years before trying to push this through.