Internet needs to be rebuilt from scratch to ensure security

BGP route hijacking is another reason why the structure of the internet needs to be changed. The border gateway protocol (BGP) is used by ISPs to establish the best routes between each other.

Joffe explained that an incident in China in April had proved the inherent weakness of the protocol. The state-owned China Telecom had transmitted routing information back to the country's own ISP, IDC China Telecommunications, rather than to the rightful ISPs owned by Dell, Apple and Yahoo.

Around 38,000 networks were affected by the incident, or roughly 10 per cent of the world's internet routes.

"The amount of work needed to do this was staggering. But these are the things IT departments just don't know about as they happen outside the organisation," said Joffe.

"There is no way for enterprises to solve these problems themselves and there is no way for the internet community in general to solve the problem without making significant changes to the plumbing of the internet.

"We need to redesign the system and rebuild it from scratch otherwise we will be building in securities forever."

Meanwhile, in the short term, Joffe said that UK organisations need to become more aware of the problems and of traffic being hijacked, and to communicate more with law enforcement agencies and competitors.

"You need to all collaborate as the bad guys will attack all of you at some point," he warned.

McCalla added to this, advising attendees to regularly review their security processes and train staff. He also warned that the internet is about to get even more complicated.

"At the moment it is just human beings that use the internet but soon it will be machines like fridges as well. The internet of things is coming fast. The government is already pushing the rollout of smart meters," he said.

An attendee at the event, IOActive president and founder Joshua Pennell, a greed that the internet needs a more secure critical infrastructure.

"I plan to let my customers know about the emerging trends in research I have heard here today," he said. "Organisations need to work on a different security strategy."

Meanwhile, Robert Holmes, managing director of the Corporation Service Company, suggested that the increasing sophistication of DNS attacks marks the "second coming of the internet".

"This would change the game for everyone," he said.