Though the global reliance on the Internet might lead one to
believe otherwise, the worldwide Internet infrastructure is
based on some fragile foundations. When users type in the URL of
their favourite website, they expect the address to take them
straight to the correct server, wherever it happens to be. That
process of translating the URL into a specific IP address is
carried out by a small collection of Domain Name System (DNS)
servers. The problem is that, if anyone managed to tamper with
the DNS server -- or 'poison' it -- then users could not be sure
they were being directed to the right website. In August 2008,
researcher Dan Kaminsky demonstrated that the DNS server
protocols were vulnerable to DNS poisoning attacks, sparking
debate over how the situation could be rectified. So what is to
be done? The problem -- and some potential solutions -- are
explored in a new article by Richard Agar and Kenneth Paterson
as part of the 2010 Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL)
series. The article summarises