Associated Vulnerability
Title:Xz: malicious code in distributed source (CVE-2024-3094)Description:Malicious code was discovered in the upstream tarballs of xz, starting with version 5.6.0. Through a series of complex obfuscations, the liblzma build process extracts a prebuilt object file from a disguised test file existing in the source code, which is then used to modify specific functions in the liblzma code. This results in a modified liblzma library that can be used by any software linked against this library, intercepting and modifying the data interaction with this library.
Description
Investigation into the XZ Utils backdoor (CVE-2024-3094): chronology, attack chain, risk to SSH, and supply-chain insights. Includes slides, sources, and mitigations (parity checks, attestations, or SBOMs, as well as SLSA)
Readme
# CS50 Intro to Cybersecurity – Final Project
**Case Study:** XZ Utils Backdoor (CVE-2024-3094)
This repository supports my 7-10 minute presentation on the XZ Utils backdoor, including a recap of the backdoor, the mechanism for the backdoor via release tarballs, and relevant supply-chain mitigations.
## Materials
- **Slides (PDF):** A Near-Miss in the Supply Chain: The XZ Utils Backdoor (CVE-2024-3094).pdf
- **References:** ./References.md
- **Video (Unlisted):** [youtube-link](https://youtu.be/hZiRb05Liw0)
## Key Takeaways
- **Tarball ≠ Git:** enforce artifact–tag parity in CI; fail on any mismatch.
- **Supply-chain hardening:** attestations (in-toto), SBOMs, SLSA ≥ L3, two-person review.
- **Detect & recover:** monitor sshd anomalous behavior/symbol interposition; retain tested rollback playbooks.
## Incident Snapshot
- **CVE:** CVE-2024-3094
- **When:** March-April 2024
- **Impact focus:** risk to SSH auth via indirect dependency chain (ex. sshd → libsystemd → liblzma)
## Acknowledgments
**Andres Freund**, these files acknowledge everyone in the distro for finding and remediating this.
---
**Presenter:** Gianluca Milani,edX: Gianluca25,GitHub: M1lo25
**Recorded Date:** 16/10/2025
File Snapshot
[4.0K] /data/pocs/2c01f634e7f80126696dbbca9c8349ea4a26f6a6
├── [288K] A Near-Miss in the Supply Chain_ The XZ Utils Backdoor (CVE-2024-3094)”.pdf
├── [1.2K] README.md
└── [2.4K] References.md
1 directory, 3 files
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