Last revised: --
Source: CERT/CC
A complete revision history is at the end of this file.
Overview
The CERT/CC has received a report that the system housing the primary FTP servers for the GNU software project was compromised.
I. Description
The GNU Project, principally sponsored by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), produces a variety of freely available software. The CERT/CC has learned that the system housing the primary FTP servers for the GNU software project, gnuftp.gnu.org, was root compromised by an intruder. The more common host names of ftp.gnu.org and alpha.gnu.org are aliases for the same compromised system. The compromise is reported to have occurred in March of 2003.
The FSF has released an announcement describing the incident.
Because this system serves as a centralized archive of popular software, the insertion of malicious code into the distributed software is a serious threat. As the above announcement indicates, however, no source code distributions are believed to have been maliciously modified at this time.
II. Impact
The potential exists for an intruder to have inserted back doors, Trojan horses, or other malicious code into the source code distributions of software housed on the compromised system.
III. Solution
We encourage sites using the GNU software obtained from the compromised system to verify the integrity of their distribution.
Sites that mirror the source code are encouraged to verify the integrity of their sources. We also encourage users to inspect any and all other software that may have been downloaded from the compromised site. Note that it is not always sufficient to rely on the timestamps or file sizes when trying to determine whether or not a copy of the file has been modified.
Verifying checksums
The FSF has produced PGP-signed lists of known-good MD5 hashes of the software packages housed on the compromised server. These lists can be found at
Note that both of these files and the announcement above are signed by Bradley Kuhn, Executive Director of the FSF, with the following PGP key:
pub 1024D/DB41B387 1999-12-09 Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn@fsf.org>
Key fingerprint = 4F40 645E 46BE 0131 48F9 92F6 E775 E324 DB41 B387
uid Bradley M. Kuhn (bkuhn99) <bkuhn@ebb.org>
uid Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn@gnu.org>
sub 2048g/75CA9CB3 1999-12-09
The CERT/CC believes this key to be valid.
As a matter of good security practice, the CERT/CC encourages users to verify, whenever possible, the integrity of downloaded software. For more information, see IN-2001-06.
Appendix A. - Vendor Information
This appendix contains information provided by vendors for this advisory. As vendors report new information to the CERT/CC, we will update this section and note the changes in our revision history. If a particular vendor is not listed below, we have not received their comments.
Free Software Foundation
The current files on alpha.gnu.org and ftp.gnu.org as of 2003-08-02 have
all been verified, and their md5sums and the reasons we believe the
md5sums can be trusted are in:
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/before-2003-08-01.md5sums.asc
ftp://alpha.gnu.org/before-2003-08-01.md5sums.asc
We are updating that file and the site as we confirm good md5sums of
additional files. It is theoretically possible that downloads between
March 2003 and July 2003 might have been source-compromised, so we
encourage everyone to re-download sources and compare with the current
copies for files on the site.
Appendix B. References
- FSF announcement regarding the incident - ftp://ftp.gnu.org/MISSING-FILES.README
- CERT Incident Note IN-2001-06 - http://www.cert.org/incident_notes/IN-2001-06.html
The CERT/CC thanks Bradley Kuhn and Brett Smith of the Free Software Foundation for their timely assistance in this matter.
Feedback can be directed to the author: Chad Dougherty.
Copyright 2002 Carnegie Mellon University.
Revision History
August 13, 2003: Initial release