Pipe 14MKC Beware of hacked ISOs if you downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th, 2016

Beware of hacked ISOs if you downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th, 2016

by
Anonymous Coward
in security on (#14MKC)
"I'm sorry I have to come with bad news.

We were exposed to an intrusion today. It was brief and it shouldn't impact many people, but if it impacts you, it's very important you read the information below.

What happened?

Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it.

Does this affect you?

As far as we know, the only compromised edition was Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.

If you downloaded another release or another edition, this does not affect you. If you downloaded via torrents or via a direct HTTP link, this doesn't affect you either.

Finally, the situation happened today, so it should only impact people who downloaded this edition on February 20th.

How to check if your ISO is compromised?"

Continued @: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2994

History

2016-02-22 17:49
Beware of hacked ISOs if you downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th, 2016
bryan@pipedot.org
"Linux Mint installation media briefly compromised:
I'm sorry I have to come with bad news.

We were exposed to an intrusion today. It was brief and it shouldn't impact many people, but if it impacts you, it's very important you read the information below.

What happened?

Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it.

Does this affect you?

As far as we know, the only compromised edition was Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.

If you downloaded another release or another edition, this does not affect you. If you downloaded via torrents or via a direct HTTP link, this doesn't affect you either.

Finally, the situation happened today, so it should only impact people who downloaded this edition on February 20th.</br>
H
low to checkquote>More if your ISO is compromised?"

Co
nformationued @: Linux Mint Blog, ycombinator, reddit, LWN
Reply 4 comments

On the bright side (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-02-21 08:00 (#14MSD)

Mint has never booted on any device I have installed it on. My choice of laptop must not be mainstream enough.

Re: On the bright side (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-02-21 08:44 (#14MW2)

here's some more:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11142986

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/46tdcj/beware_of_hacked_isos_if_you_downloaded_linux/

https://lwn.net/Articles/676613/

https://twitter.com/Linux_Mint/status/701222478178340864

"Mint has never booted on any device I have installed it on. My choice of laptop must not be mainstream enough."

Neh.. chomp chomp chomp.. What's up, Doc?

Re: On the bright side (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-02-21 13:47 (#14NE5)

Meh ubuntu worked fine :-)

DUDE FP+ THIS STORY FAST! (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2016-02-21 09:53 (#14MZW)

It's a good one!