-
Russell Mickler, Principal Consultant, has over 17 years of professional experience leading and managing IT organizations.
Hackers Strike UltraDNS
Written on March 7, 2007
Leave a Comment
|
Surprised that this didn’t make better headlines but hackers from South Korea successfully attacked 3 out of the 12 Internet DNS root servers last month. There was a scramble to thwart the attack and redirect name resolution traffic; it was the biggest attack since 2002.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17011675/
If it were successful, the attackers would have successfully prevented millions of Internet host computers from resolving names. Typing in www.microsoft.com or clicking on hyperlinks would have stalled as client PC’s waited name resolution responses from root servers. The Internet would have slowed to a crawl, and many webpages just would have timed out.
The attack demonstrates a certain hacker emboldenment, and, some degree of tactical prowess. This wasn’t simply a demonstration of the ability to cripple somebody’s computer or rip off personal private information. This was a tactical demonstration of somebody’s ability – by command – to send the Internet economy into the dark ages. If anything, the attack would have allowed the attackers to see what the UltraDNS response would be, and, to gage bandwidth and volume requirements on a quarter of the root servers. In effect, this may not have been an attack at all, but an intelligence gathering effort.
Interesting – the article seems to praise the resiliancy of the Internet by it’s design. I believe that’s too much confidence in the design. The next attack may prove that the aggressors learned from their experience and may simply bring the global Internet economy to its knees. Instead of thinking we dodged the bullet, we should be thinking out plans to dodge the next 50-caliber round that comes screaming our way.