Thank you for reading the LinuxSecurity.com weekly security newsletter. The purpose of this document is to provide our readers with a quick summary of each week's most relevant Linux security headlines.

LinuxSecurity.com Feature Extras:

- LinuxSecurity debunks some common myths and misconceptions regarding open source and Linux by answering a few Linux-related frequently asked questions.

Security Highlights from Defcon 26 - Defcon 26 provided individuals and organizations with valuable tips and insight on security and the latest and most effective defenses. Here are some security-related highlights from the event.

  Cybersecurity Is Only 1 Part of Election Security (Sep 16)
 

The DEF CON 2018 Voting Machine Hacking Village aimed to raise awareness in voting security through a full day of speakers and panel discussions along with a challenge for attendees to hack more than 30 pieces of voting equipment. A partnership with rOOtz Asylum offered youths between 8 and 16 years old an opportunity to hack replicas of the websites of secretaries of state to demonstrate that even hackers with limited years of experience can easily compromise critical systems.
  (Sep 19)
 

The headlines love to talk about sophisticated hacking gangs, exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities to break their way into businesses and steal corporate data.
  (Sep 17)
 

A new phishing campaign is using an old trick in an effort to steal login credentials, payment details and other sensitive information from victims by claiming to offer them a tax refund which can only be claimed online.
  (Sep 17)
 

Normal service was finally resumed at Bristol airport yesterday after two days of ransomware-related outages caused a blackout of flight information screens.
  (Sep 18)
 

In a surprising move, Linus Torvalds, Linux's creator, is taking a break from his Linux kernel work to work on his behavior toward other developers. In a note to the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), Torvalds wrote, "I need to change some of my behavior, and I want to apologize to the people that my personal behavior hurt and possibly drove away from kernel development entirely."
  New California Law Aims to Fix the Internet of Broken Things (Sep 19)
 

California is hoping a new law will help fix the security and privacy problems that plague the so-called internet of things, but experts say a lot more needs to be done to seriously tackle the problem.
  The Linux Kernel Has Grown By 225k Lines of Code So Far This Year From 3.3k Developers (Sep 16)
 

After writing yesterday about kernel contributions of AMD vs. NVIDIA vs. Intel, I kicked off the hours-long process of gitstats analyzing the Linux kernel Git repository for some fresh numbers on the current kernel development trends.
  (Sep 20)
 

Of course the ESS ExpressVote voting computer will have lots of security vulnerabilities. It's a computer, and computers have lots of vulnerabilities.
  (Sep 19)
 

Three men who operated and controlled the notorious Mirai botnet have been sentenced to five years of probation.
  Employee Personal Info Exposed in State Department Hack (Sep 18)
 

As detailed by the Politico report confirmed by US officials, the employees affected by the e-mail system hack were notified, but the alert sent also discloses the fact that the e-mail system containing classified information was not breached.
  Australian encryption Bill raises bar for outrageous legislation: Comms Alliance (Sep 20)
 

A little over a week since the window closed for public submissions on the government's draft Assistance and Access Bill, Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton on Thursday introduced the Bill into the House of Representatives.
  (Sep 21)
 

Many organizations, from Red Hat to internet-scale giants like Google and Facebook, have established open source programs (OSPO). The TODO Group, a network of open source program managers, recently performed the first annual survey of corporate open source programs, and it revealed some interesting findings on the actual benefits of open source programs.