The Linux Foundation Falls In New Security Breach

There was the widely-reported Kernel.org security breach at the end of August, which resulted in the servers used for hosting the Linux kernel Git repository and other code to be forced off-line. Kernel.org has still not been restored, and now there's a related security breach at the Linux Foundation. Linux.com, the Linux Foundation itself, and related infrastructure are now "down for maintenance" this weekend.

There hasn't been much reporting on the Linux Foundation breach yet since they just took down their sites over the night and emailed all registered users of Linux.com, etc. When the next week begins, we'll likely hear more on the matter.

The Linux.com web-site currently is reporting:

Linux Foundation infrastructure including LinuxFoundation.org, Linux.com, and their subdomains are down for maintenance due to a security breach that was discovered on September 8, 2011. The Linux Foundation made this decision in the interest of extreme caution and security best practices. We believe this breach was connected to the intrusion on kernel.org.

We are in the process of restoring services in a secure manner as quickly as possible. As with any intrusion and as a matter of caution, you should consider the passwords and SSH keys that you have used on these sites compromised. If you have reused these passwords on other sites, please change them immediately. We are currently auditing all systems and will update this statement when we have more information.

We apologize for the inconvenience. We are taking this matter seriously and appreciate your patience. The Linux Foundation infrastructure houses a variety of services and programs including Linux.com, Open Printing, Linux Mark, Linux Foundation events and others, but does not include the Linux kernel or its code repositories.

Please contact us at info@linuxfoundation.org with questions about this matter.

The Linux Foundation