AT&T DNS Server Hacked in Texas

Well it was only a matter of time. Didn’t take too long. Seems as if Tuesday, an AT&T DNS server was compromised and anyone using that DNS server and they typed google.com, they were directed to a fake Google search page and behind the scenes there was some click fraud going on. It’s all about the money with the bad guys. You can click here to read the Techworld.com story. It isn’t too long so take a look at it.

You don’t have to think that there are more of these coming for anyone who hasn’t patched for this problem. This time was semi-harmless but you can just imagine that banking sites will start being the bait and the bad guys will gain credentials of innocent folks and they will steal money from all who are using the next compromised DNS server.

Stay safe out there folks. More of this will be coming. If you have checked out your ISP’s DNS and it is found to be vulnerable, then switch to OpenDNS.com. I wrote about that this week so take a look at it. Happy Thursday everyone!

Problem with DNS - Check Your DNS Here

On July 8th, an announcement was made public that DNS had problems. What is DNS you may ask? Well on the Internet, sites are assisned and IP Address. It is a number that would be hard to remember. For example, if you wanted to go to the web to do a search, you would have to type in 72.14.207.99. This IP is assisgned to Google. Thankfully we don’t have to remember these numbers. We can type in google.com and we can search. How can we type in google.com and be directed to 72.14.207.99? DNS. DNS directs us to the appropriate website by converting the name to an IP.

A security researcher, Dan Kaminsky, came out Tuesday saying that DNS was vulnerable to cache poisoning. This is a bad thing. If the criminal attackers can exploit DNS, they can direct you to evil IP instead of your bank.com or paypal.com and you would never know a thing. Seeing that this is a major issue, Dan gathered the folks together at Microsoft, Cisco, OpenDNS, and others. This was all kept secret until all the vendors who had issues with could patch at the same time. Doing this would correct the problem in a short time and the evil attackers could not exploit this vulnerability.

In the patches released in July from Microsoft, if you look closely at them, you’ll see a patch for DNS. Pretty important. I’ve said over and over and over. Patch, patch, patch! Now you can only do so much. Others have thing to do also. Dan has a DNS Checker to check and see if you DNS you are using has been patched. If not, you can use another DNS. Check out opendns.com to see other options you have. Opendns doesn’t have these problems.

So click on the DNS Checker link and check out your DNS today. Have a safe weekend.