IETF moves against IPv6 threat

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) engineers, reacting with unusual speed, have moved to address a serious security lapse in IPv6 before it becomes too widespread.

The bug, involving Type 0 Routing Headers, could allow attackers to greatly magnify the effectiveness of denial-of-service attacks, and was highlighted at a presentation at the CanSecWest security conference earlier this month. It is in fact the reappearance of an old problem that was eliminated from the current IPv4 system long ago.

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