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Gnome.org Compromised?
Garden GNOME writes "The GNOME sysadmin team has just announced that the main GNOME web server has probably been intruded into, leading to the shutdown of the GNOME website, (including bugzilla.gnome.org, art.gnome.org and developer.gnome.org). The GNOME mailing lists, and CVS servers seem to be up, though the FTP server was immediately taken down as a precautionary measure (released sources are believed to be intact). This is bad, because GNOME 2.6 was supposed to be released tomorrow. Let's hope it is a false alarm."
I guess the next version of longhorn will now look like GNOME.
Damn you KDE zealots!! Let us have our release!
Shouldn't that read Gnome.org Kompromised? No, no, that's KDE. It should read Gnome.org Gnompromised.
The Slashbots will point blame at the admins. However, if it were Microsoft...
Am I the only one who started picturing little lawn ornament men being caught in embarrassing positions?
Shades of Toy story....
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
I wonder if they have CRC'd the source and bins yet? Christ, who attacks OPEN SOURCE? Oh....heh.
Well...I suppose that if this is a new vulnerability, it's better that they go after a high-profile webserver with a good admin team that can catch the attack than that they attack many poorly-adminned ones.
May we never see th
We've discovered evidence of an intrusion on the server
hosting www.gnome.org and other gnome.org websites.
At the present time, we think that the released gnome
sources and the gnome source code repository are unaffected.
We are investigating further and will provide updates
as we know more. We hope to have the essential services
hosted on the affected machine up and running again as soon
as possible.
The GNOME sysadmin team
23 March 2003
if Linux boxes were not attacked security would not be as good. Look at this in a positive manner. At least on Linux the problem will be remedied within hours and life goes on.
At least they caught it now, instead of after the release. Now the code can be checked before it goes out, instead of everyone worrying about whether they downloaded compromised code
A Compromised Gnome. The image is just wrong.
...Gnot today.
It's a bit disappointing that somebody was able to compromise their gnetwork, but i guess gno system can be comletely secure. I only hope people would stop putting G's in front of all the N words they use when they're talking about Gnome. It's getting on my gnerves.
Esoteric reference.
But, just like in previous break-ins to other systems (Gentoo, Debian, Savannah), they're taking the correct actions by shutting everything down and BEING CAREFUL. I often wonder if commercial companies are always this fastidious.
:)
You can't beat all the crackers, but handling a bad situation correctly should be commended. Good job, GNOME team!
I'm eagerly awaiting 2.6, too, I may add!
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Oh my God! I hope they didn't steal any source code!!
MOHAWK DAN: LOL D00DS IM IN
sLiPkNoT696969: omg d00d hax0rs them
p1kap1ka: hahaha pwnage u go d00d what proxy r u using
MOHAWK DAN: WHATS A PROXY LOL
p1kap1ka: uh... it hikes ur ip
MOHAWK DAN: LOL WHATS AN IP TELL ME NOW THAT IM A HAX0R
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of compromised gnome servers.
That's the wrong attitude to take. If a Linux-based server is compromised because of software flaws, that's a perfectly legitimate point in an argument about security, just as the compromise of a Windows-based server because of a software flaw would be. If there's a real vulnerability that let somebody crack the system (as opposed to a misconfiguration or incorrect belief that the system was broken into) it needs to be fixed pronto, rather than written off as a PR event.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
You know...honestly...
There have been serveral major, high profile compromises of numerous FOSS servers in the past twelve months. Including a compromise of the GNU source repository.
Microsoft has not made a big deal out of these (at least as far as I've seen). Whereas every security flaw at Microsoft is treated by Slashdot as if someone got access to the crown jewels (well, admittedly the Windows source is running around all over the place...)
Microsoft has really been acting a lot nicer towards FOSS folks about security lapses.
That being said, I'm just *waiting* for a sourceforge compromise. That would be a *huge* hit, and it just plain has to happen sooner or later.
It would be nice if a couple of distributions put out basic *up-to-date* HOWTOs of best practices on how to set up minimal, secure servers using their distribution.
May we never see th
You can't compare a Linux distribution with hundreds of packages to Windows, which is basically a kernel/GUI/browser combo.
Try using (for Linux) the number of kernel/X11/Mozilla vulnerabilities instead and at least you'll start making sense.
must.. resist.. temptation to moderate...
I wonder if they are running a Debian based or Debian itself, and Debian has another hole in it.
Funny. Too bad that was just a regular kernel hole, not one special to Debian's kernel. Any other distros can simply count themselves lucky the attackers didn't choose them.
When Microsoft undergoes a security breech, their source code spills out and leaks across the entire Internet.
When gnome.org undergoes a security breech, their source code is more *difficult* to get.
Fun, eh?
May we never see th
I fully expect a bunch of lame Microsoft jokes.
But let's be real, here. Last year in the span of six months, Debian, Gentoo, and GNU (twice!) were compromised. Now GNOME.
Can you honestly rail on Microsoft? When was the last time their servers were compromised? I only vaguely recall something in 2000 about alleged stolen source code, and a real good that has turned out all these years later. As for this year's stolen source code, Slashdot never reported this but it was taken from a Linux computer at MainSoft.
Just funny how things are viewed around here, with a certain bias some people don't even realize they have.
My bad, won't happen again.
-KDE
Error 407 - No creative sig found
From Netcraft:
Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) (Red Hat/Linux) mod_ssl/2.6.4 OpenSSL/0.9.5a PHP/3.0.7
Could it have anything to do with the old version of OpenSSL, and the numerous vulns found lately?
guess next you'll tell us that ASP.NET is the better plattform for web services =)
while (!asleep()) sheep++
Why cant these idiots find something else to do with their time then screw up systems. ( be it some OSS project or a commercial behemoth )
Perhaps we just need to forget the courts, and find people that do this and take care of the problem.
All it does is make everyone's life harder, it doesn't get 'them' anywhere...
Disclaimer: I'm not even a Gnome fan.. it's the principle.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...sorry.
The Gnome team didn't mix all the web sites (where user custom shell scripts are always a risk) with the cvs box.
More info will appear as the forensics are done.
But to emphasize: cvs.gnome.org is a seperate system
With OSS, an intrusion, even a full bore compromise of the code base is more likely to be caught. I would hope that there are diligent OSS people that cross-compare their copies of the source to the CVS copies and look for disrepancies. A distributed analysis of all changes (including the officially sanctioned ones) would help uncover malicious code.
In contrast, the users of proprietary code have only the manufacturer's word on what changes occured, who made them, and what those changes do. We users have no easy way (short of reverse engineering the code deltas on the binaries) of determining what happened between version X and version X.1. The security of non-OSS code is in nontransparent hands and that makes it insecure.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
If windows came with SQL and Exchange server, Office suite and various other add-ons and softwares, it'll be easily as big. But that doesn't matter since you cannot download non-trial version of Windows from MS in the first place.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Here is what the devolopers should do.
Each time they submit a file that they have made changes to in the cvs archive, then also hmac it and sign it with their private key. Then later on if the system was compromized you could go back and computer the hmac of the file to make sure it matches that which the programmer submitted it to be.
And then even if the system was compromised you wouldn't have to question which ones were changed or not since it can be checked just by confirming the hmacs.
The best design for security have perfect forward security. And a signed hmac would prove the validity of the file unless the signing key was compromised.
At least as far as I been aware it never been a a OS that was at fault.
nitpicking? Well yes. But just ask yourselve this. Gnome runs Red Hat. If there was a hole in Red Hat then why is only gnome under attack and not every Red Hat box in the world? Are linux hackers more easily satisfied and think 1 box is enough?
So what do you think has happened here. Someone found a fault with Red hat or did someone find a fault with the Gnome setup of their Red Hat server?
Only fools blaim MS for users who download a "keygen" that turns out to be a virus. However we do blaim MS for making holes in their software that affects every damn installation of windows out there.
That is the difference.
As for your howto suggestion. They exist. They just are a lot of work and most people don't bother. Hell if you follow such howto's then Windows can be made secure (rule 1 Windows is not an internet OS, run it behind a firewall that means not a firewall ON windows but windows BEHIND a firewall). I follow them. My windows/dos box has never been compromised. Neither has my linux box.
Then again neither of my machines is supposed to do what gnomes machines are supposed to do. It is easy to secure to the outside world when nobody is supposed to access it. Fort Knox is secure because nobody is allowed in there. The highstreet bank is a lot harder to secure.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'd actaulyl think the code might have been touched. The timing of the hack is interesting because it is so close to a release. If I was going to try and plant something I'd wait until just before it goes out the door in a mssive release. Less chance of getting caught and biggest dispersal oppurtunity. Sigh
So, when is the FBI going to accounce their special task force to track down these dangerous hackers? After all, isn't that what they did when the Microsoft code was leaked? Something tells me this won't even make the FBI's radar, though...
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
We have to remember that most of the people working on Gnome and/or maintaining the servers are volunteers. That said, I have to tip my hat to these people for the very professional action they provided post the compromise. Taking down the compromised server, informing the community, and, most importantly, not releasing premature statements of blame or excuses (which is more than what I can say for a lot of professional companies).
Its also on a seperate switched port 8)
I do know. I think I may even have been the first person to post a good explanation of how to sniff switched networks to bugtraq in fact 8)
There was arp monitoring stuff running too