'A virus could destroy the internet' says Icann

Internet domain governing body Icann has issued a stark warning on the vulnerability of the internet to a catastrophic malicious attack, in its annual conference being held this week.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has devoted the whole of the conference to examining the security risks which hackers could use to bring the web to its knees, in response to the 11 September terror attacks.

According to a report on Reuters, Icann is worried that the thirteen root servers which direct traffic to domains, or the ten top-level domain-name servers, could be compromised.

A denial of service attack targeting these servers could theoretically disrupt all web traffic.

Fears have been heightened by the increased level of virus activity and hacking, with the Code Red and Nimda viruses. The Code Red virus attempted to force a denial of service attack on the White House website, and some claim managed to slow internet traffic by 40 per cent.

Icann's annual meeting is due to last until Thursday.