An anonymous coder nearly hacked a big chunk of the internet. How worried should we be?

Outside the world of open-source software, it’s likely few people would have heard about XZ Utils, a small but widely used tool for data compression in Linux systems. But late last week, security experts uncovered a serious and deliberate flaw that could leave networked Linux computers susceptible to malicious attacks.

The flaw has since been confirmed as a critical issue that could allow a knowledgeable hacker to gain control over vulnerable Linux systems. Because Linux is used throughout the world in email and web servers and application platforms, this vulnerability could have given the attacker silent access to vital information held on computers throughout the world – potentially including the device you’re using right now to read this.

Major software vulnerabilities, such as the SolarWinds hack and the Heartbleed bug, are nothing new – but this one is very different.

The XZ Utils hack attempt took advantage of the way open-source software development often works. Like many open-source projects, XZ Utils is a crucial and widely used tool – and it is maintained largely by a single volunteer, working in their spare time. This system has created huge benefits for the world in the form of free software, but it also carries unique risks.

Open source and XZ Utils

First of all, a brief refresher on open-source software. Most commercial software, such as the Windows operating system or the Instagram app, is “closed-source” – which means nobody except its creators can read or modify the source code. By contrast, with “open-source” software, the source code is openly available and people are free to do what they like with it.

Open-source software is very common, particularly in the “nuts and bolts” of software which consumers don’t see, and hugely valuable. One recent study estimated the total value of open source software in use today at US$8.8 trillion.

Until around two years ago, the XZ Utils project was maintained by a developer called Lasse Collin. Around that time, an account using the name Jia Tan submitted an improvement to the software.

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