Here is some further information about the security threat to the internet. (Even knowing all of this- the discoverer plans to PUBLISH his findings openly?!!)
Experts Race to Fix Serious Internet Flaw
Computer security experts in the United States and Britain today confirmed that a new method has been identified that could make it easy for hackers to disrupt Internet communications worldwide, prompting a months-long, quiet effort to convince Internet service providers and other operators of the global telecommunications system to upgrade their systems.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued an alert Tuesday afternoon warning that the vulnerability could be used to "affect a large segment of the Internet community."
The exploit, identified by 36-year-old Milwaukee security researcher Paul Watson, could give hackers the ability to crash Internet routers -- the complex machines that direct most of the world's Web traffic.
The method that Watson identified takes advantage of an inherent design flaw in transmission control protocol (TCP) -- the language that all computers use to communicate on the Internet -- that could place ordinary computers at greater risk of attack.
Watson, who is scheduled to present his findings at a security conference in Canada later this week, could not be immediately reached for comment.
A notice on the conference's Web site and Watson's own site, www.terrorist.net, indicates that he still plans to share the full details of his research.
Specific details about the vulnerability were published for the first time today by British security officials who said a successful attack using the flaw could significantly disrupt online communications.
"The exploitation of this vulnerability could have affected the glue that holds the Internet together," said Roger Cumming, director of the National Infrastructure Security and Coordination Center in the United Kingdom. "Fixing it is a small but significant step to aid the overall stability of the Internet."
The NISCC and its peers in the United States, Canada and Australia have been working with Cisco Systems Inc., Juniper Networks Inc., and all of the major Internet router manufacturers to address the problem, NISCC officials said. (snip)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...27890_2004apr20