DNS Vulnerability Overview and Suggested Mitigations

On July 9th, 2008 a massive effort was made among software and hardware vendors to release a simultaneous patch to their products. This patch was created to mitigate or minimize the effects of a vulnerability discovered in the basic operation of the Internet Domain Name System or DNS. This subsystem is critical to the operation of the Internet and provides for the translation of human readable names into computer usable IP addresses.

Vendors of most major operating systems and network hardware participated in the effort. Each vendor also released their own advisories and patches using their existing patch processes. The US CERT also played a major role in coordinating the release and advises all organizations to test the patches from the vendors and get them applied as soon as possible. While no known malicious activity exists as of the time of this writing, it is largely known that attackers are assembling the details that have been made public and are attempting to recreate the vulnerability and exploitation techniques that the initial researcher discovered.

Download the paper in PDF format here.