On Thu, 18 May 2006, Helge Hafting wrote:[attack snipped]
Chase Venters wrote:
Yeah, so to wrap this malware conversation up -- the most effectiveThe maintainer will. Over and over, we see maintainers tell developers
way to implant malicious code in Linux is to crack into developer
machines and sneak the changes in.
And hope that someone doesn't notice.
to fix their patch - often the problem is something as small as
"bad withespace" or "stupid name for a variable".
Now try to get a backdoor in, and see the maintainer get a fit over
the changes that are clearly unrelated to the problem mentioned
in the changelog.
And if you succeed with the spyware anyway, then someone will notice
the strange packets going out. That you cannot prevent, and it will then
be tracked down. Or you get a backdoor in? It will be found as soon as
it sees some use, or likely earlier with all the more or less automated
vulnerability chacking going on.
Helge Haftinjg
Remember this back door?
# exitNot a linux kernel backdoor.
logout
Connection closed by foreign host. LINUX> exit
Script done on Thu 18 May 2006 07:39:27 AM EDT
Early sendmail went years with the wizard back-door and the
code wasn't obscured in any way.