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Merit Recommends Members Patch DNS Servers
July 28, 2008
Ann Arbor - On July 8, security researcher Dan Kaminsky announced that
Domain Name System (DNS) servers may be vulnerable to a specific
attack known as DNS cache poisoning and that organizations with DNS servers should patch their
equipment immediately.
Kaminsky, the director of penetration testing at IOActive,
discovered the DNS flaw in early 2008 and met with 16 computer vendors at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington
headquarters in March to describe his findings. Rather than disclose the vulnerability
and risk damage to the Internet, Kaminsky waited until the vendors had
created patches for their systems. When the patches became ready for distribution in
early July, he made his knowledge of the DNS vulnerability public.
Kaminsky has still not disclosed the specific flaw, but others
have speculated that the vulnerability allows "cache poisoning"
attacks that manipulate the data stored in computer memory caches that
relay Internet traffic to its destination, which could possibly
be used in phishing schemes. Reports circulated late last week that
hackers have begun to utilize the weakness and that
two exploits have been found on the Internet by security experts.
The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), a joint government-private sector security partnership,
recommends that organizations with DNS servers immediately patch their systems to protect
computers linked to the Internet.
Merit Network patched its DNS servers soon after the patches were made available on July 8.
We recommend that organizations that have not already taken steps to patch their DNS servers do so immediately.
Below are links related to the DNS vulnerability:
Go to the Merit Network News Archive.
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