This backdoor almost infected Linux everywhere: The XZ Utils close call

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BeeBright/Getty Images It all started when Andres Freund, a Microsoft principal software engineer, became curious about why the SSH remote security code in the Debian Linux beta was running slowly. Freund did some digging and discovered the problem: A chief programmer and maintainer of the xz data compression library, Jia Tan, had put a backdoor in the code. Its purpose? To enable attackers to take over Linux systems. Also: Linux might be your best bet for heightening your desktop computer security Recently, it has become all too common for malicious hackers to insert bad code into software. Some open-source code...