Internet flaw a boon to hackers

LAS VEGAS (Nevada)  - Computer security professionals crammed into a Las Vegas ballroom on Wednesday for the first public briefing on an Internet flaw that lets hackers hijack traffic on the World Wide Web.

“There is bunch of weird (stuff) going on out there right now,” expert Dan Kaminsky told AFP, confirming that attacks are being launched online despite efforts to conceal and patch the vulnerability in the Internet’s foundation.

Kaminsky, the director of IOActive penetration testing, was met with applause and cheers when he stepped to a podium at the premier Black Hat conference to reveal details of an attack that is a boon to ill-willed hackers.

An elite squad of computer industry engineers labored in secret to solve the problem, and released a software “patch” in early July but sought to keep details of the vulnerability hidden until Black Hat to give people time to protect computers from attacks.

The Domain Name System (DNS) flaw was figured out and spread online within two weeks of the patch’s release and US telecom giant AT&T was the first confirmed victim of an attack.

Kaminsky said that while businesses are still hustling to protect their Internet traffic, only 15 percent Fortune 500 companies have “done nothing” to defend their computers.