massive internet vulnerability found !!!!!

researchers at cornell university have found a HUGE problem in the internet structure which could allow 85% percent of it to be vulnerable to hackers when combined with the denial of service attack.

the vulnerability lies in the addressing system and they are suggesting an entire rethink of how domains are named and found to solve this problem.

so, as this is now public knowledge, it may be 'hold onto you hats' time for a while whilst the hackers have their 'fun' and someone comes up with some temporary band aid patches against them.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Interesting discovery; they would of been better off not releasing this.

Also, hackers will always have the ability to take over any part of the internet; all protections can fail when faced with the greatest hackers.

Originally posted by Omniscient
Interesting discovery; they would of been better off not releasing this.

hackers are probably the ones who originally leaked the info, but compromising their own lair is most likely not a high priority, is it?

Ok the secure parts of the internet, when managed properly. are fine
The home-run-hosting gigs are very vulnerable, the cheap overseas hosting places are vulnerable, home PC email users with basic knowledge are vulnverable..
There are alot of vulnerable PC's out there, but you dont say "any part of the internet" can be attacked.. lol

Originally posted by fennek77
There are alot of vulnerable PC's out there, but you dont say "any part of the internet" can be attacked.. lol

Well it's true. Internet was created by men that are probably on the same or lower intellectual level of some hackers; why do you put it below them to find vulnerabilities in any part of the internet. It's quite possibly to take over or hijack any part of the internet and there are numerous books and movies which refer to it.

i think he needs to go and read the article instead of just commenting flippantly. its the combination of the flaw and the type of attack used which makes it so dangerous. they even found the fbi's site was vulnerable ('they' being researchers from the department of computer science at cornell university).

its not as simple as saying, "well i've got a firewall so im protected". a dust mask wont stop chemicals and firewalls and anti-viruses are only as good as the last KNOWN types of attacks. before a new one is discovered, you're not safe. in this case, theyre not saying just update your firewall but to totally rewrite the whole addressing system

Originally posted by fennek77
Ok the secure parts of the internet, when managed properly. are fine
The home-run-hosting gigs are very vulnerable, the cheap overseas hosting places are vulnerable, home PC email users with basic knowledge are vulnverable..
There are alot of vulnerable PC's out there, but you dont say "any part of the internet" can be attacked.. lol

Oh that is so true.....I cant count how many windows vulnerabilities Ive....ahem!
found, or just flat out ignorance on the part of the users, not securing network shares with passwords and leaving them open. (netbios) which is extinct in 2k/XP boxes

Also Unix or more accurately linux machines are tougher to penetrate, especially as they are strange compared to win box and most big webservers on the net are linux based boxes...some arent but you have to know what to look for.

I wasnt trying to counter the post.
I agree with you yes, its very possible to affect any part of the internet.. very true

I work in network security.. and all im saying is, there are always measures you can take to avoid this..
But even the most secure networks can be subjected to attacks..

Its not an attack like getting in and stealing information and putting a page up with a skull and warning etc. - stereotypical

The attack that occurs is like this (around christmas time this happened).
A group from India were doing a massive philshing attack on our systems (clients). They were basically spamming our clients with "enter your credit card here for security reasons" type emails, the tricky ones.
We got hit with over 300,000 emails a day, this caused our mail servers to lock up, basically die and then we spend the next 2 weeks sorting spam, from real mail.
How was this possible? I dont know, but it was hell for us as the network was farked for a week..

I appologise, my first post was just saying that hacking is a completely differant method these days.. 1 hacker takes over 250 vulnverable PC's and controls them to spam a network or deplay a DDOS attack.. Its tricky but theres always a way

Well the reason Linux posseses security measures, is its simplicity. Windows is full of crap the user doesnt neccesarily need, sitting in the background and these features can be exploited.
Linux is a raw, basic OS which uses only what you need. Therefore its easier to 'bottleneck' attacks..