GNU Project FTP Server Compromise: No Major User Impact Observed

The GNU Project has apparently dodged a major bullet since the FTP server housing its source code was root-compromised by a cracker in March. Bradley M. Kuhn, executive director of the Free Software Foundation, the Boston-based sponsor of the GNU . . . The GNU Project has apparently dodged a major bullet since the FTP server housing its source code was root-compromised by a cracker in March. Bradley M. Kuhn, executive director of the Free Software Foundation, the Boston-based sponsor of the GNU Project, said this week that the attack had no major impact on users downloading code from its site.

"There is evidence the cracker did not touch the source code. In fact, it's looking like the person did not know they had gotten onto the machine hosting all the source code for the GNU Project," Kuhn said.

GNU is a free Unix-like operating system (It's an acronym for GNU's Not Unix). Linux, for example, is a combination of many GNU components, including the compiler, different libraries and the kernel, authored by Linus Torvalds.

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