Daphne Preston-Kendal – The next xz attack #FOSSBack

This talk by Daphne Preston-Kendal addresses the xz backdoor attack that occurred between 2021 and 2024, highlighting its exploitation of social engineering methods to target critical SSH infrastructure. The speaker emphasizes the potential for similar attacks to increase in sophistication, particularly driven by advancements in large language models (LLMs), suggesting that the traditional vulnerability profile of undermaintained projects is no longer a reliable indicator of future risks. The discussion underscores the urgent need for security models to adapt in response to these evolving threats that affect open source operating systems globally.