My mastodon feed is full of IT security specialist talking about the xz affair where someone let a backdoor in some library.

But beside showing the two side of Free/Libre software (anybody can add a backdoor, and anybody can spot it), I have no idea how it impacts the average person. Is it a common library or something used only by specific application ? Would my home-grade router protects me ?

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    It could have meant a lot to the average person if it wasn’t caught. If this was some adversary, they could have used it to cripple critical infrastructure in the largest cyber attack in history.

    Luckily it was caught before this software was rolled out to really anything that should be in prod.