Core Internet technology is vulnerable to hackers, researchers find

Tuesday, April 20th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Researchers found a serious security flaw that left core Internet technology vulnerable to hackers, prompting a secretive effort by international governments and industry experts in recent weeks to prevent global disruptions of Web surfing, e-mails and instant messages.

Experts said the flaw, disclosed Tuesday by the British government, affects the underlying technology for nearly all Internet traffic. Left unaddressed, they said, it could allow hackers to knock computers off line and broadly disrupt vital traffic-directing devices, called routers, that coordinate the flow of data among distant groups of computers.

``Exploitation of this vulnerability could have affected the glue that holds the Internet together,'' said Roger Cumming, director for England's National Infrastructure Security Coordination Centre.

The flaw affecting the Internet's ``transmission control protocol,'' or TCP, was discovered late last year by a computer researcher in Milwaukee, Paul ``Tony'' Watson, 36, who said he identified a method to reliably trick personal computers and routers into shutting down electronic conversations by resetting the machines remotely.