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Internet Addressing Flaw Fears Extend to E-Mail, Other Online Services

by Tim Stevens on August 7, 2008 at 09:52 AM

Internet Addressing Flaw Fears Extend to E-Mail, Other Online Services
Remember that ugly flaw in Internet addressing, or DNS, which was detected and fixed, but not by everyone and not in time? The man behind many of those warnings, security expert Dean Kaminsky, recently gave a presentation at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, elaborating on how the flaw not only affects Web pages, which has been most commonly reported on, but also could allow hackers to take over e-mail and FTP addresses, as well as other common online communication protocols.

Kaminsky even indicated that the Secure Socket Layer, or SSL, is also vulnerable. SSL certificates are what results in the "key" being displayed when you're shopping at a secure site, indicating to you that your data is being encrypted and secured as it travels over the wire. Not everyone is so concerned, however. VeriSign, one of the leaders in SSL certificates, is playing down those fears. A representative indicated that the company has known of this flaw for "many years" and has "basically engineered around [it]."

Why the company didn't bother to tell anyone else remains to be seen. Way to be a team player there, VeriSign. [Source: CNN, and BBC News]

Tags: black hat, BlackHat, breaking news, BreakingNews, dns, Internet, security, verisign

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