Note: although Clem says that it only affects February 20th downloads, someone commented that he was still getting a hacked ISO on the 21st and that attacks might still be ongoing.Beware of hacked ISOs if you downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th!
Written by Clem on February 21st, 2016
I’m sorry I have to come with bad news.
We were exposed to an intrusion today. It was brief and it shouldn’t impact many people, but if it impacts you, it’s very important you read the information below.
What happened?
Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it.
Does this affect you?
As far as we know, the only compromised edition was Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.
If you downloaded another release or another edition, this does not affect you. If you downloaded via torrents or via a direct HTTP link, this doesn’t affect you either.
Finally, the situation happened today, so it should only impact people who downloaded this edition on February 20th.
More info: http://blog.linuxmint.com/