Planet Money The hack that almost broke the internet
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May 17, 2024 Dive into a narrow escape from a monumental cyberattack that targeted key computers powering the internet! Discover how hackers exploited vulnerabilities in a widely-used open-source program over two years. The discussion highlights the surprising reliance on unpaid, anonymous contributors for major software. Explore the balance of innovation and risk in the open-source movement and how this incident reveals the fragility of our digital infrastructure. It’s a thrilling tale of technology, community, and the unseen dangers lurking in code!
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The XZ Update Email
- Richard Jones, a Red Hat engineer, received an email from a seemingly reputable volunteer named Gia Tan about an XZ update.
- This seemingly innocent email, containing smiley emojis and exclamation points, led to Richard integrating the update, which later proved to be a malicious backdoor.
The Vulnerability of Open Source
- Modern software development relies on a blend of trillion-dollar corporations and unpaid volunteers.
- This collaboration creates a unique vulnerability due to the reliance on small, sometimes one-person, teams.
Electric Fence and Open Source
- Bruce Perens, a founder of the open-source movement, created 'Electric Fence' to detect software bugs.
- Sharing the code led to unexpected improvements from other programmers, demonstrating the collaborative power of open source.