Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

4/22/2004

Major TCP Vulnerability

Filed under: Criticism, Marginalia, and Notes,Geek Work,News and Current Events,The Network Geek at Home — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Hare which is in the early morning or 7:29 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Crescent

Of course, I’m sure everyone’s talking about this already, but…

Well, it’s a pretty big deal! So, yesterday morning I read an article on Australian IT about a really big problem with TCP. Now, if you don’t know what TCP is, don’t worry. It won’t effect your job at all. Of course, I’m not sure why you’re reading this blog, but, whatever. Now, for those of you who understand what this means: Stop Panicking!

First of all, if you check the articles that are floating around, it’s not every implementation of TCP that’s effected. On the other hand, if you’re running a router with Border Gateway Protocol, you’d better check on it. That’s one of the biggest nasties here. It makes all sorts of routers vulnerable. That’s thousands of times worse than just hitting a workstation. A firewall can usually block attacks on a workstation, but routers are something else again. After all, most hardware firewalls are really special purpose routers, so… Well, best to check on them. (Frankly, I’ve never been so glad that I’m primarily a server guy!)
As for the rest of it, I’ll hold on for a bit and see what turns up. I’m sure there will be tonnes of Micro$oft service packs and other patches, but until they’re released, there’s not much I can do. Fasten your seatbelts, kids, the ride’s about to get a little bumpy.


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