Embedded Malicious Code Affecting xz-utils package, versions <5.6.1+really5.4.5-1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
critical
0
10

CVSS assessment made by Snyk's Security Team

    Threat Intelligence

    Exploit Maturity
    Mature
    EPSS
    15.96% (97th percentile)

Do your applications use this vulnerable package?

In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.

Test your applications
  • Snyk ID SNYK-DEBIAN13-XZUTILS-6514282
  • published 30 Mar 2024
  • disclosed 29 Mar 2024

How to fix?

Upgrade Debian:13 xz-utils to version 5.6.1+really5.4.5-1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream xz-utils package and not the xz-utils package as distributed by Debian. See How to fix? for Debian:13 relevant fixed versions and status.

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.

References

CVSS Scores

version 3.1
Expand this section

Snyk

Recommended
10 critical
  • Attack Vector (AV)
    Network
  • Attack Complexity (AC)
    Low
  • Privileges Required (PR)
    None
  • User Interaction (UI)
    None
  • Scope (S)
    Changed
  • Confidentiality (C)
    High
  • Integrity (I)
    High
  • Availability (A)
    High
Expand this section

NVD

10 critical
Expand this section

Red Hat

10 critical