Level 3 Threat Research Labs Reveals New Timeline for Linux Mint Backdoor

BROOMFIELD, Colo., Feb. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Level 3 Communications (LVLT) has new details about the Linux Mint operating system backdoor incident on February 20. The company’s threat intelligence and research arm, the Level 3 Threat Research Labs, investigated and confirmed the exact timeframe of compromise, revealing the impact was worse than reported by other sources.

New Details
Linux Mint provided information about the breach but they weren’t able to answer the question, “When did traffic start redirecting to the malicious site?” Threat Research Labs found traffic shifted to multiple different malicious hosts at three separate intervals between February 19 and 21, a wider swath of time than the reported February 20 date.

By providing the full time period for compromise, users have a clear understanding of first, if they were compromised and second, if they should take action – such as taking the infected computer offline, consulting the Level 3 blog for the compromised files, deleting the malicious ISO and, with any breach, changing passwords for sensitive websites keeping in mind best practices.

Read the full Threat Research Labs findings here: http://blog.level3.com/security/the-linux-mint-backdoor-how-bad-was-it.

Background
A hacker hijacked the Linux Mint operating system installation images, pointing the links to a malicious site. The malicious site hosted copies of the installation disc that contained a backdoor for a Denial of Service (DoS) bot, installed on the user’s computer during the download. A “backdoored” operating system can pose a large risk by giving complete control of the impacted system to the attacker. Precision incident time reporting is key to understanding and evaluating the risk, giving a time stamp for users to assess whether their machines may be compromised.

About Level 3 Communications
Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) is a Fortune 500 company that provides local, national and global communications services to enterprise, government and carrier customers. Level 3’s comprehensive portfolio of secure, managed solutions includes fiber and infrastructure solutions; IP-based voice and data communications; wide-area Ethernet services; video and content distribution; data center and cloud-based solutions. Level 3 serves customers in more than 500 markets in over 60 countries across a global services platform anchored by owned fiber networks on three continents and connected by extensive undersea facilities. For more information, please visit www.level3.com or get to know us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

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