Experts Warn Again of Potential Terrorist Disruption of the Internet
Today's New York Times carries an article about the possibility that terrorists attacks against the Internet are likely in response to the war currently being waged in Afghanistan. In addition, hackers who are not affiliated with terrorist groups are using increasingly powerful tools to disrupt the operation of a large number of Web Sites.
This article does not merely reiterate the warnings against the Nimda worm and its derivatives. It also talks rather extensively about vulnerabilities in the UNIX SSH utility.
In our experience, concerns about these sorts of attacks are legitimate. We urge readers who operate servers on the Internet to apply the patches recommended by their hardware, operating system, Web Server, and database vendors. Servers that are insecure because they do not carry the latest security patches are the greatest threat to the unimpeded use of the Internet today.