Fergie's Tech Blog

Researchers Warn of DNS Recursion Attacks

An AP newswire article by Ted Bridis, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

First detected late last year, the new attacks direct such massive amounts of spurious data against victim computers that even flagship technology companies could not cope. In one of the early cases examined, the unknown assailant apparently seized control of an Internet name server in South Africa and deliberately corrupted its contents.

Experts traced at least 1,500 attacks that briefly shut down commercial Web sites, large Internet providers and leading Internet infrastructure companies during a period of weeks. The attacks were so targeted that most Internet users did not notice widespread effects.

Ken Silva, the chief security officer for VeriSign Inc., compared the scale of attacks to the damage caused in October 2002 when nine of the 13 computer "root" servers that manage global Internet traffic were crippled by a powerful electronic attack. VeriSign operates two of the 13 root server computers, but its machines were unaffected.

"This is significantly larger than what we saw in 2002, by an order of magnitude," Silva said.

posted by Fergie @ 3/15/2006 07:51:00 PM