Overview

Backporting is the term used to describe the process of taking a fix from newer versions of code and applying those changes to an existing version. For Red Hat and Red Hat style Linux operating systems, this is applied to system packages as well as the Linux kernel.

Many customers run vulnerability scans on their websites and servers to show potential issues with either the site and/or server in regards to what security issues they may face. Most of these tools don’t properly consider backported packages when comparing versions and therefore may flag items which are a false positive.

For example, a vulnerability scanner may find an issue with a specific package (for example cURL) and based on the version only think that it’s out-of-date. We highly recommend that any report where issues are flagged properly reviews the patched packages rather than just the major version number.

For all Linux based Virtual Private Server customers as well as all shared hosting and managed hosting customers, Conetix continually applies server level updates on a frequent basis. This ensures that the servers are running the latest system packages and therefore protected against known security vulnerabilities.

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