from edupage

[David Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

HOLE IN THE WEB
A security glitch was discovered last week in the Mosaic software used to
store information on computers linked to the World Wide Web.  The flaw
allows hackers to gain control of the Web's servers, posing the risk that
the Web could be vulnerable to attack by a computer "worm," an automated
program that could systematically wipe out all Web sites.  "This is the
first Web vulnerability that's really serious," says a computer scientist
at the Dept. of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability.  The
University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications,
which created Mosaic, has fashioned a software "patch" that verifies the
length of the command strings, thereby prohibiting anyone from tacking on
an extra line of potentially damaging commands. (Wall Street Journal
2/21/95 B8)