Linux Foundation servers were hacked

UNIDENTIFIED HACKERS managed to break into the Linux Foundation servers hosting linux.com and linuxfoundation.org. The incident has led to significant and ongoing downtime while the Linux Foundation rebuilds the servers.

The Linux Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Linux and open source standards. It also operates the Linux Developer Network, which helps developers build applications for the open source Linux operating system.

The security breach was discovered on 8 September and is believed to be related to the compromise of kernel.org last month. The Linux Foundation took the servers offline for investigation and reinstallation over the weekend.

The Linux Foundation believes that usernames, passwords, email addresses and other information provided by Linux.com users might have been compromised during the breach.

"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," the Linux Foundation said in an announcement posted in place of the front page of its web site.

Users are strongly advised to change their passwords on all other web sites where they might have used the same ones and should watch out for rogue emails claiming to originate from the organization or its services.

"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," the Linux Foundation noted.

Kernel.org, the official home of the Linux kernel, has been offline since last month when administrators detected an intrusion on several servers associated with it. In the meantime, Linux development efforts have moved to Github, a collaborative coding platform hosting over two million project repositories.

This is just the latest in a string of attacks against the open source community during the past year. Last December hackers broke into Savannah, the development platform maintained by the Free Software Foundation. µ