If your staff run a popular screensaver that searches for
extraterrestrial life, they could unwittingly open your network to
hackers. The grid computing project SETI@home has been downloaded
free by four million internet users – but appears to bring with it
a security risk.
Run by Berkeley University in the US, SETI@home is a project
that offers a free screensaver. Like other screensavers, it starts
up when a computer is left unattended and shuts down as soon as the
user returns to work. What it does in the interim is unique. It
uses the computer's available power to search for extraterrestrial
intelligence by analysing chunks of data captured by the world's
largest radio telescope. Harnessing the available power of many
computers like this is known as grid computing.
However, Dutch computer science student Berend-Jan Wever
discovered the potential for accessing the networks of those
computers running the screensaver – although he adds that he did
not test his theory.
Consequently, the Berkeley team has released a new version of
the screensaver to close the security hole.
The team points out that to exploit the vulnerability of earlier
versions, "a potential attacker would have to trick the client into
contacting a fake server rather than the actual SETI@home server."
It adds: "To our knowledge, no SETI@home client has ever been
attacked in this manner."
