VeriSign, at Web's core, is hacked: What does it mean to you?

[koalabear]

"VeriSign is one of the most important enterprise trust authorities in the world, which delivers people safely to more than half the world's websites,” wrote Catalin Cosoi, Chief Security Researcher at Bitdefender Labs. “A certificate issued by VeriSign will automatically be accepted by both browsers and operating systems. This kind of incident practically voids all the security provided by 64-bit operating systems,"

VeriSign's most critical function is its role in the Domain Name System address book, which governs what happens when Web users type common name Web addresses into their browsers. There are 13 "root" DNS servers placed strategically around the planet for redundancy. VeriSign operates two of them. Should a hacker gain access to this part of VeriSign's business, he or she could theoretically poison the other 11 root DNS servers, and the bad data would eventually spread to the other DNS servers. The consequences could be dire: It could mean that everyone who typed "msnbc.com" into a Web browser would be sent to a computer controlled by criminals, instead of the real msnbc.com website. A computer criminal with destructive intensions could theoretically ruin the database that maps names with IP addresses and effectively shut down parts of the Internet. It has long been discussed that these root name servers are perhaps the most vulnerable point of the attack on the Internet

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/...-webs-core-is-hacked-what-does-it-mean-to-you

 

[CandiCame]

"VeriSign is one of the most important enterprise trust authorities in the world, which delivers people safely to more than half the world's websites,” wrote Catalin Cosoi, Chief Security Researcher at Bitdefender Labs. “A certificate issued by VeriSign will automatically be accepted by both browsers and operating systems. This kind of incident practically voids all the security provided by 64-bit operating systems,"

VeriSign's most critical function is its role in the Domain Name System address book, which governs what happens when Web users type common name Web addresses into their browsers. There are 13 "root" DNS servers placed strategically around the planet for redundancy. VeriSign operates two of them. Should a hacker gain access to this part of VeriSign's business, he or she could theoretically poison the other 11 root DNS servers, and the bad data would eventually spread to the other DNS servers. The consequences could be dire: It could mean that everyone who typed "msnbc.com" into a Web browser would be sent to a computer controlled by criminals, instead of the real msnbc.com website. A computer criminal with destructive intensions could theoretically ruin the database that maps names with IP addresses and effectively shut down parts of the Internet. It has long been discussed that these root name servers are perhaps the most vulnerable point of the attack on the Internet

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/...-webs-core-is-hacked-what-does-it-mean-to-you

Sounds like someone- possibly anonymous- is still pretty pissed about SOPA.
Of course, I never know what I'm talking about, so...