Debian: Attack Didn't Harm Source Code:

But Open Source is Safer?

"Despite a cracker incursion into Debian Project servers this week, representatives of the Debian Linux distribution said the open-source code behind it remains untouched."

This is not the first time an open-source site has been attacked by crackers. In March of this year, the Free Software Foundation Inc.'s GNU Project ftp servers were attacked. This assault, which caused no damage to the code, was only discovered months afterwards.

In the Debian case, though, the break-in was discovered within 24 hours. The cracker had gained access to four machines: "master," the bug-tracking system; "murphy," the mailing-list manager; "gluck," the Web server and Concurrent Versions System (CVS) system; and "klecker," which houses security, quality assurance and search-engine code. Martin Schulze, a Debian spokesman, reported that the Debian source code archives themselves were "not affected by this compromise."

"This kind of attack is inevitable in open source," Murdoch said. "We've increased security. At the beginning of Debian, becoming a developer was as easy as sending me an e-mail, but these days there are checks and balances in place to make sure that only real developers get in and that the code stays clean."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1394420,00.asp?kc=EWNWS112403DTX1K0000599