Nine major TCP/IP stacks are vulnerable to a decades old attack, and some have yet to be patched.

The so-called Mitnick attack capitalizes on an improperly generated random number, known as an initial sequence number, used to prevent collisions in TCP/IP connections. If hackers can guess the number, they can insert themselves as a man in the middle. It is called a Mitnick attack, because hacker Kevin Mitnick used the technique in 1994 before the TCP/IP started using random numbers.

Forescout tested 11 TCP/IP stacks used in IoT devices — seven open-source, four commercial — to see if any were still vulnerable to a Mitnick attack. They found that nine of the 11 did not properly randomize numbers.

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