Makers of infamous xz backdoor cleverly managed to cover their tracks, analysis shows - #CVE-2024-3094
The open source community has been facing a series of sophisticated social engineering attacks aimed at infiltrating projects and introducing backdoors, as highlighted by the recent incident involving the XZ data compression library. These attacks involve malicious actors posing as contributors and seeking maintainer privileges under the guise of addressing critical vulnerabilities. A prominent case was the XZ Utils backdoor, which could have compromised Linux systems but was fortunately discovered before its widespread distribution. The incident has prompted major open source foundations to raise awareness and provide guidance on identifying and preventing such supply chain attacks. There is a growing call for increased global investment in open source security to support maintainers and bolster the integrity of these critical software projects.