Adrian Mastronardi has released a book called Half a Second; it is a detailed look into the XZ backdoor attempt of 2024. The book is freely available under a (non-free) noncommercial, no-derivatives CC license.
Half a Second tells that story as one continuous narrative: the burned-out volunteer who maintained the code alone and was patiently, expertly manipulated into giving it up; the engineer whose half-second of curiosity caught the attack through a chain of luck and hard-won instinct; and the operator who built it, who has never been identified and, this book argues, may never be.
'Half a Second' — a book on the XZ backdoor
Submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@lemy.lol to cybersecurity@infosec.pub
https://lwn.net/Articles/1083466/
adespoton@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
Nice to see a book on this; this story should not be forgotten, as it shows how fragile the entire system is — and with AI automation, it’s only becoming easier to pull such things off.