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Last month, the world narrowly escaped an ambitious cyberattack. The targets were some of the most important computers on the planet. These are the computers that power the internet. Computers used by banks, airlines, and even the military.
What these computers have in common is that they all rely on open source software.
One of the odd facts of modern life is that most of the computers that run our lives are running open source software. That is, software that is mostly written by unpaid, sometimes anonymous volunteers. Some important open source programs are written by only An overworked programmerAs the world learned last month, these programs can be tempting targets for hackers.
In this case, hackers compromised a popular open source program called XZ. Over the course of two years, they slowly turned XZ into a secret backdoor. If they hadn’t been caught, they could have taken control of much of the internet.
In today’s show, we’ll learn the story behind the XZ hack and what led to it. How hackers exploited the weird way we develop modern software. And what this in turn reveals to us about the economics of one of the world’s most important industries.
This show is hosted by Jeff Guo and Nick Fountain. It is produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It is designed by Cena Loffredo and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is the executive producer of Planet Money.
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Music: NPR Source Audio – “Strange Tango,” “Warped Worlds,” and “Detective Dan”
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