CVE-2024-3094: Xz: malicious code in distributed source

Severity: critical (CVSS 10.0 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 90.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2024-03-29 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-506

Description

Malicious code was discovered in the upstream tarballs of xz, starting with version 5.6.0. Through a series of complex obfuscations, the liblzma build process extracts a prebuilt object file from a disguised test file existing in the source code, which is then used to modify specific functions in the liblzma code. This results in a modified liblzma library that can be used by any software linked against this library, intercepting and modifying the data interaction with this library.

Affected products

tukaani-project xz: 5.6.0, 5.6.1

References

https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2024-3094
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2272210
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/urgent-security-alert-fedora-41-and-rawhide-users
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/10
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/12
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/5
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/8
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/30/12
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/30/27
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/30/36

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