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Hack Attacks Likely Following Internet Addressing Flaw

by Tim Stevens on July 23, 2008 at 08:24 AM

Details of Internet Addressing Flaw Accidentally Released, Hackers Rejoyce

Remember that major flaw announced earlier this month in DNS, the Domain Name System responsible for getting your browser from a URL like www.switched.com to the actual computer that hosts it? Well, fixes were released for the problem before the details of the issue were widely known, and the hope had been to keep those details under wraps for another month or so to give time for Internet administrators to install those fixes. Well, oops, the details were accidentally leaked yesterday, and security experts are now saying to get ready for a flood of attacks.

The flaw could allow hackers and phishers to make any Web site not only look like another page, but actually be served up when you type in the correct address, leaving you with no way to know the site is fake before entering your login information.

Though fixes for the flaw have been released, as usual, it will take some time before they're installed on servers around the world, leaving many sites still vulnerable. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do except hope that banks and other major sites are keeping ahead of the hackers on this one -- something they've certainly failed to do in the past. [Source: PC World]

Tags: breaking news, BreakingNews, computers, dns, phishing, security

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