Debian Bug Leaves Private SSL/SSH Keys Guessable

Posted by timothy on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @04:01AM from the security-is-a-process dept.

SecurityBob writes "Debian package maintainers tend to very often modify the source code of the package they are maintaining so that it better fits into the distribution itself. However, most of the time, their changes are not sent back to upstream for validation, which might cause some tension between upstream developers and Debian packagers. Today, a critical security advisory has been released: a Debian packager modified the source code of OpenSSL back in 2006 so as to remove the seeding of OpenSSL random number generator, which in turns makes cryptographic key material generated on a Debian system guessable. The solution? Upgrade OpenSSL and re-generate all your SSH and SSL keys. This problem not only affects Debian, but also all its derivatives, such as Ubuntu." Reader RichiH also points to Debian's announcement and Ubuntu's announcement.

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i wondered what was going on by oni · 2008-05-13 04:05 · Score: 0, Offtopic

I remember installing openSSL on debian long ago and being prompted to type some random text or to move the mouse while the key was generated. More recently, when I installed debian or ubuntu, it just magically generated a key. I guess that was the part that was removed.