A backdoor entry to one of the most important pieces of software in the world was found during a routine check. If it was exploited, the effects could have been catastrophic.
The internet, as anyone who works deep in its trenches will tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine.
Recently, while doing some routine maintenance, Freund inadvertently found a backdoor hidden in a piece of software that is part of the Linux operating system. The backdoor was a possible prelude to a major cyberattack that experts say could have caused enormous damage, if it had succeeded.Now, in a twist fit for Hollywood, tech leaders and cybersecurity researchers are hailing Freund as a hero. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, praised his “curiosity and craftsmanship.
But a few weeks later, while running some more tests at home, he noticed that an application called SSH, which is used to log into computers remotely, was using more processing power than normal. He traced the issue to a set of data compression tools called xz Utils, and wondered if it was related to the earlier errors he’d seen.
In particular, he found that someone had planted malicious code in the latest versions of xz Utils. The code, known as a backdoor, would allow its creator to hijack a user’s SSH connection and secretly run their own code on that user’s machine.At first, Freund doubted his own findings. Had he really discovered a backdoor in one of the world’s most heavily scrutinised open-source programs?
“This could have been the most widespread and effective backdoor ever planted in any software product,” said Alex Stamos, the chief trust officer at SentinelOne, a cybersecurity research firm.
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