Bad actors threaten to weaponize open source software

A recent report by Strider Technologies, reported by Defense One, describes how state-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, and North Korea are contributing to widely used open-source software. By injecting vulnerabilities and backdoors into the open-source projects that are built into digital infrastructure, these actors can potentially exfiltrate sensitive data or disrupt operations, Strider’s research warns.

The now-infamous XZ Utils incident showcased the scale of the risk: a backdoor, planted by a contributor over years, was almost incorporated into core Linux distributions used by major corporations, with potentially catastrophic consequences. More than 20 percent of contributors to openvino-genai, an increasingly popular AI toolkit, were connected to sanctioned or high risk entities, according to Strider.

This practice builds on a trend of intelligence services leveraging sanctioned firms—such as Russia’s MFI Soft and Positive Technologies—to develop code bases, sometimes directly serving national surveillance and cyber-espionage agendas

Open source’s transparency serves as a vital counterweight to such compromises. Thanks to public code review, the XZ Utils backdoor was detected by a vigilant Microsoft engineer before widespread damage occurred. The OSS community is ramping up its self-policing: projects like OpenSSF now share real-time alerts.