Researchers caution against TCP/IP weakness
Researchers at Finnish security firm Outpost 24 claim to have discovered a flaw in the Internet Protocol that can disrupt any computer or server. After keeping the flaw quiet for years, the researchers hope that going public will help accelerate the creation of a solution.
The flaw allows attackers to cripple computers and servers by sending a few specially formed TCP/IP packets. The result can be compared to a denial of service attack, in which networks are flooded with traffic. But in the case of the newly revealed flaw, only a minimum of traffic is required. "We're talking 10 packets per second to take down one service," Jack Lewis, a senior researcher with Outpost24 told Webwereld, an IDG affiliate.
Researchers at Fox-IT, a Dutch security firm, confirm the issue. "Based on the available information, this vulnerability may be a serious problem for system availability," observed Erwin Paternotte, a researcher with Fox-IT. "If the technical details are publicly disclosed, performing a denial-of-service attack will become relatively trivial."
