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Common Threats: Supply chain attacks (#2467)

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Signed-off-by: Jonah Aragon <jonah@triplebit.net>
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docs/basics/common-misconceptions.md
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@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ schema:
These myths stem from a number of prejudices, but whether the source code is available and how software is licensed does not inherently affect its security in any way. ==Open-source software has the *potential* to be more secure than proprietary software, but there is absolutely no guarantee this is the case.== When you evaluate software, you should look at the reputation and security of each tool on an individual basis.
Open-source software *can* be audited by third-parties, and is often more transparent about potential vulnerabilities than proprietary counterparts. It also allows you to review the code and disable any suspicious functionality you find yourself. However, *unless you do so*, there is no guarantee that code has ever been evaluated, especially with smaller software projects. The open development process has also sometimes been exploited to introduce new vulnerabilities into even large projects.[^1]
Open-source software *can* be audited by third-parties, and is often more transparent about potential vulnerabilities than proprietary counterparts. It also allows you to review the code and disable any suspicious functionality you find yourself. However, *unless you do so*, there is no guarantee that code has ever been evaluated, especially with smaller software projects. The open development process has also sometimes been exploited to introduce new vulnerabilities known as <span class="pg-viridian">:material-package-variant-closed-remove: Supply Chain Attacks</span>, which are discussed further in our [Common Threats](common-threats.md) page.[^1]
On the flip side, proprietary software is less transparent, but that doesn't imply that it's not secure. Major proprietary software projects can be audited internally and by third-party agencies, and independent security researchers can still find vulnerabilities with techniques like reverse engineering.
@ -94,4 +94,4 @@ One of the clearest threat models is one where people *know who you are* and one
Using Tor can help with this. It is also worth noting that greater anonymity is possible through asynchronous communication: Real-time communication is vulnerable to analysis of typing patterns (i.e. more than a paragraph of text, distributed on a forum, via email, etc.)
[^1]: One notable example of this is the [2021 incident in which University of Minnesota researchers introduced three vulnerabilities into the Linux kernel development project](https://cse.umn.edu/cs/linux-incident).
[^1]: A notable supply chain attack occurred in March 2024, when a malicious maintainer added a obfuscated backdoor into `xz`, a popular compression library. The backdoor ([CVE-2024-3094](https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-3094)) was intended to give an unknown party remote access to most Linux servers via SSH, but it was discovered before it had been widely deployed.