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Thwarted Linux backdoor hints at smarter hacks
Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus 2003-11-06

Software developers on Wednesday detected and thwarted a hacker's scheme to submerge a slick backdoor in the next version of the Linux kernel, but security experts say the abortive caper proves that extremely subtle source code tampering is more than just the stuff of paranoid speculation.

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Thwarted Linux backdoor hints at smarter hacks 2003-11-09
Anonymous (4 replies)
Thwarted Linux backdoor hints at smarter hacks 2003-11-11
Anonymous (1 replies)
Thwarted Linux backdoor hints at smarter hacks 2003-11-12
Penguinisto
"If it had got in and was just left to sleep there, what's the chance it would have been found? "

Dunno... with open source, there are too many eyeballs on the source for it to have remained hidden for too awful long. Given the internal checks already present, plus the proposed (and widely approved of) addition of GPG signatures for new source submissions, it'll get just that much harder for someone to slip something in, at least under the pretense of being someone else.

/P

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/7388/23647#23647
Thwarted Linux backdoor hints at smarter hacks 2003-11-11
Cid Skid the Former Script K1d (3 replies)







 

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