this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] charonn0@startrek.website 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Even the researcher who reported this doesn't go as far as this headline.

"I am an admin, should I drop everything and fix this?"

Probably not.

The attack requires an active Man-in-the-Middle attacker that can intercept and modify the connection's traffic at the TCP/IP layer. Additionally, we require the negotiation of either ChaCha20-Poly1305, or any CBC cipher in combination with Encrypt-then-MAC as the connection's encryption mode.

[...]

"So how practical is the attack?"

The Terrapin attack requires an active Man-in-the-Middle attacker, that means some way for an attacker to intercept and modify the data sent from the client or server to the remote peer. This is difficult on the Internet, but can be a plausible attacker model on the local network.

https://terrapin-attack.com/

[–] Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If someone can gain physical access to your network, you're already fucked.

[–] Laser@feddit.de 0 points 9 months ago

If your threat model excludes attackers able to do MitM attacks, then why use encryption at all? The whole point of all this encryption stuff is that it prevents exactly this. And I'd say nowadays an honest assumption about IT security is not that there's no attacker who doesn't have access to what's going over the wire, but that there's an attacker who has complete access to everything that leaves anything you can directly control and check.