Humans are not good with numbers. At least not many are. That’s why the DNS, the Domain Name System, is in place. It translates the addresses that we enter in the browser to IP addresses that the computer understands. A DNS lookup of google.com would result in the IP 72.14.207.99 (among others) and you can type in that IP or the name and both will take you to Google.
Those lookups are handled by dns servers and recently a serious vulnerability has been discovered that makde it possible to manipulate those queries. This could be used to send users to a different location which could open the door for serious phishing incidents. Just think about the possibility to fake eBay or Amazon and send visitors to those fake sites even if they type in the real address.
Doxpara Research, run by security researcher Dan Kaminsky, created a script that is checking if the DNS server that you are currently using is vulnerable to the attack. This is done by pressing a button on their website. I tested the script in Firefox and Internet Explorer and both lookups work fine.
One solution if the DNS server is found to be vulnerable would be to switch to the Open DNS system. David Bradley, an active reader of my website, covered the topic as well on his Significant Figures website.
Is your DNS server still vulnerable? Let me know!
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I’m definitely safe ;-)
Thanks for the citation!
db
I use OpenDNS, and I checked, and I’m secure. I had checked a couple of days ago, before I switched to OpenDNS, and I was unsafe. :)