Red Hat, Fedora Servers Face Hack Attack

A rare Linux security breach occurred when Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora project servers were compromised by an illegal intrusion. Red Hat advised Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora customers on how to determine if they had been affected. Red Hat security specialists say the Fedora package signing key was not breached.
Last week, Red Hat security specialists had a problem on their hands when they detected an illegal intrusion on the company's computer systems. The attack affected both the Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers and the servers of the Fedora Project, a Linux-based operating system supported by Red Hat.

Servers were instantly taken offline. Red Hat issued an advisory to its customers, telling them how to check to see if they had been compromised and offering an updated version of the affected packages, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

"Security specialists and administrators have been working since [they discovered the attack] to analyze the intrusion and the extent of the compromise, as well as reinstall Fedora systems," said Paul W. Fields, Fedora's project leader. "We are using the requisite outages as an opportunity to do other upgrades for the sake of functionality as well as security."