Half-Life Boom

Half-Life Boom is an exploit named (but not discovered) by Luigi Auriemma (aluigi).  The attack consists of a malformed packet which will crash pre-Steam versions of Half-Life.  Both clients and servers are affected; clients however are unlikely to be targeted.  You can read the advisory here.

At present there are fixes available for all affected versions:

• Aluigi provides a file for his Lame Patcher Program which will patch the bug in memory.  His patch is available here and fixes Windows and Linux servers of version x.1.1.1e.
• Windows users of all versions may install a Winsock proxy which prevents the malformed packet from ever reaching the client or server.  The files, program sources, and installation instructions may be found *insert link*.
• Linux users of all versions may compile and preload C code written to prevent the packet from being processed by the server.  One such file which includes compiling and preloading instructions exists *insert link*.

Use whichever patch you feel most comfortable using.  If you encounter problems please report them in the Support forums.