Linux4All

Linux Mint's download page compromised on Feb 20

2016-02-21T11:32:51Z

Posted by: moem

Clement Lefebvre writes on the Linux Mint Blog:

"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?

If you still have the ISO file, check its MD5 signature with the command “md5sum yourfile.iso” (where yourfile.iso is the name of the ISO).

The valid signatures are below:

6e7f7e03500747c6c3bfece2c9c8394f  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-32bit.iso
e71a2aad8b58605e906dbea444dc4983  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-64bit.iso
30fef1aa1134c5f3778c77c4417f7238  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-nocodecs-32bit.iso
3406350a87c201cdca0927b1bc7c2ccd  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-nocodecs-64bit.iso
df38af96e99726bb0a1ef3e5cd47563d  linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-oem-64bit.iso

If you still have the burnt DVD or USB stick, boot a computer or a virtual machine offline (turn off your router if in doubt) with it and let it load the live session.

Once in the live session, if there is a file in /var/lib/man.cy, then this is an infected ISO.

What to do if you are affected?

Delete the ISO. If you burnt it to DVD, trash the disc. If you burnt it to USB, format the stick.

If you installed this ISO on a computer:

Put the computer offline.
Backup your personal data, if any.
Reinstall the OS or format the partition.
Change your passwords for sensitive websites (for your email in particular).

Is everything back to normal now?

Not yet. We took the server down while we’re fixing the issue.

Who did that?

The hacked ISOs are hosted on 5.104.175.212 and the backdoor connects to absentvodka.com.

Both lead to Sofia, Bulgaria, and the name of 3 people over there. We don’t know their roles in this, but if we ask for an investigation, this is where it will start.

What we don’t know is the motivation behind this attack. If more efforts are made to attack our project and if the goal is to hurt us, we’ll get in touch with authorities and security firms to confront the people behind this.

If you’ve been affected by this, please do let us know."

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Free branch versions of targetcli, rtslib, and configshell for Gentoo Linux

2015-08-28T21:21:32Z

Posted by: t_fischer

I spent the better part of today's evening preparing and testing .ebuild files (available in my GitLab repository) for the so-called ‘free branch’ versions of targetcli, rtslib, and configshell called targetcli-fb, rtslib-fb, and configshell-fb. The ‘free branch’ versions are the recommended way of setting up a iSCSI target on Linux, according to the Arch Linux wiki.

( Read more... )

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ArchLinux – How I Got There and What I Found

2012-12-09T17:55:53Z

Posted by: t_fischer

I have been using ArchLinux for almost three months now on my work (desktop) laptop. After using Gentoo Linux for more than three years on the previous machine, I thought it would be time to try something new.

In this posting, I would like to share my experiences on Arch compared to other distributions I am/was using.

( Read more... )

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The perfect setup?

2012-11-09T16:37:50Z

Posted by: siliconshaman

I think we've all heard the gripes about Unity on Ubuntu. So I thought I'd share my configuration for those that want to try it out.

Ok, so here's the "recipe" for you to roll your own Unity-free Ubuntu.
1 start with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS distro.

2 install Cinnamon desktop like so, in the terminal type :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

3 install MDM [mint] login manager instead of GDM [gnome] login manager.

again in the terminal type;

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mdm mint-mdm-themes

4. configure MDM login manager from Menu>Administration>Login Window. Set Cinnamon as default. [and whatever other tweaks&theme you want for your login screen].

You can go ahead and uninstall Unity, but leave gnome as cinnamon does use sections of it.. plus it's handy to have a backup. Cinnamon itself, unlike gnome, is fully customisable and works well with the new kernal. Compiz also works well with it.

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Help out a newbie Xubuntu user?

2012-05-11T05:40:29Z

Posted by: innerslytherin

Hi everyone! I've read through the entries about Linux and netbooks, and thanks to everyone who has shared their knowledge.

I have a post at my personal journal about my Acer netbook and having just installed Xubuntu. I'm hoping I can get tips from people in this community as to how I can, well, prettify my system a little.

I'm also interested in your recommendations for word processing apps. Xubuntu came with Abiword, which I have used a handful of times. Are there other programs that are better? (Background: I've been a Windows and Microsoft Word ever since I left DOS and PFS First Choice as a high schooler, and I am, generally speaking, a fan of Microsoft Word, in that it's never given me problems.) I don't want to bog my system down with more program than it can handle, given that I have 1 GB of memory and a 1.66 GHz processor, but I definitely want to know my options.

And while we're at it, what about blog clients? I'm using DW, LJ, and WordPress, so something that can handle all of those would be great, but any of the three would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance! So far I'm loving my Linux experience, and I'm already planning to fix my mom's laptop by installing Ubuntu on it for her. :)

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Suggestion for best Distro to put onto an old laptop

2010-10-20T14:30:44Z

Posted by: faintdreams

I have an ancient (but otherwise fully functional) Toshiba laptop. It is a Satillite 220CDS.

I want to use it as a stand alone writing machine, (with ability ti save to a usb stick), and I think that Linux is probably the best way to go, but I am unsure which linux distro would be the least amount of hassle to install.

The gui doesn't have to be too snazzy (I've used fluxbox before so I'm not afraid of minimalism), but whatever I use it has to support a competent word processing package

My google fu is failing me so I welcome any suggestions.

Thanks (in advance)

Faintdreams

Duh posted to personal journal and no community one !

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