Mint hacked

[Aurel]

Well good to know and this is real warning for anyone to have dual boot.

"We don't know motivation behind this," says distro creator.

Is that some sort of Ubuntu-Ubuntu clone wars?

http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/02/linux-mint-hit-by-malware-infection-on-its-website-and-forum-after-hack-attack/

[ZXDunny]

Not really - it was a guy who found a vulnerability (in Wordpress! Who knew? ) in their website so bundled up his own distro of Mint with a backdoor in it and changed the MD5 sums to match so that he could build a botnet. It was found pretty quickly.

D.

[Aurel]

well Dunny
i am member of linux forum in Cro and from what i read there whole thing is not
trivial.

[ZXDunny]

well Dunny
i am member of linux forum in Cro and from what i read there whole thing is not
trivial.

Absolutely - it's a disaster, as there are now an unknown quantity of Mint installs (everyone who downloaded it on saturday) that are compromised and actively running as part of a botnet.

But it's not Mint that got hacked, it's their website. Downloading Mint before the breach or even after does not mean you have a hacked/backdoor-enabled version.

D.

[ScriptBasic]

It's strange that Linux would get mulishly hacked in this way. Most hackers use Linux as their OS and there is a code of honor not to shit on your own plate. I think whoever did this is going to hear it from their peers.

[ZXDunny]

Eh?

1. Whoever did this did it because an opportunity presented itself. He has said as much in interviews. There is no code of ethics in the black-hat community - a target is a target. If there was a code of ethics then we wouldn't be getting SWAT raids on innocent people - though that is america, so isn't totally unexpected. And yes, they're all the same types of users.

2. Whoever did this is well known, as he's admitted it publicly.

And can we please stop calling them "Hackers"? It's totally the wrong term for this. You especially, John, are old enough to know better than that.

D.

[ScriptBasic]

And can we please stop calling them "Hackers"? It's totally the wrong term for this. You especially, John, are old enough to know better than that.

A guy can beat the crap out of someone in a ring and is paid millions of dollars. He does the same in the bedroom and it's prison time. Hard for me to see the difference.

P.S. I'm younger then you think. 

[B+]

And can we please stop calling them "Hackers"? It's totally the wrong term for this. You especially, John, are old enough to know better than that.

A guy can beat the crap out of someone in a ring and is paid millions of dollars. He does the same in the bedroom and it's prison time. Hard for me to see the difference.

P.S. I'm younger then you think. 

Allot of difference! In ring, both parties signed off on deal, it is refereed and it is more an even match (otherwise people want their money back). I think you must be 10.

[ZXDunny]

Indeed - although the term "hacker" has been adopted by the popular media to indicate anyone who breaks security systems for nefarious reasons, the origins of the term (wrt computers) goes back much further and was generally meant for people that subvert a system to do things it wasn't originally intended to do. If it weren't for those original hackers, we'd not have the technology scene we have today.

The problem is that people that don't have much technical ability tend to swallow what the press tell them, and hence we get people mis-using the term.

D.

[ScriptBasic]

I think you must be 10.

Close.