Thursday, April 04, 2024

XZ Utils - Checking the Installed Version

XZ Utils has been affected by a backdoor malware. Versions 5.6.0 and/or 5.6.1 are the affected versions. Want to see what version of the XZ Utils you are running? Open a Terminal Window and type the following:

xz --version

Mine returned the following (I'm running Ubuntu 22.04):

xz (XZ Utils) 5.2.5
liblzma 5.2.5

So I'm running version 5.2.5.  If your's returns versions 5.6.0 or 5.6.1, you have the version that has the backdoor malware in it and you need to take action to downgrade your XZ Utils to an older version that does not contain the backdoor.

I am not a security experts and you should research this issue yourself if your affect, Use this solution at your own risk.  If you're running Ubuntu you can update XZ Utils by typing the following in a Terminal Window:

sudo apt-get update 

sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade xz-utils

In this case the Update with actually downgrade you to a non backdoor version.