Dear Users,

on Friday evening, July 3rd (UTC) we found a few suspicious files on the CentOS webserver. Upon investigating we found out that the files had been put there through Xoops (the CMS www.centos.org runs on) - and that this was possible due to a an administrative error which has been corrected.

As far as we can see there has been no data or binary injected into the system or taken from the system. The machine hasn't been used as a source for sending spam (in the widest possible meaning) either.


We have been able to identify the source of the attacks, but have not been able to find out if the files have been put there through a compromised user account in the Xoops system.

Although we are fairly sure that there has been no such compromise, we have enforced a password expiry on all accounts on the system.

wiki.centos.org and bugs.centos.org - though being on the same machine - have not been affected by this.

All users having an account on www.centos.org need to acquire a new password through the "lost password" system of Xoops.

We are terribly sorry for any inconvenience this might cause you and would like to apologize for that.

On behalf of the CentOS team,

Ralph Angenendt