A computer security company on Monday inadvertently published details of a major flaw in the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) several weeks before they were due to be disclosed. The flaw was discovered several months ago by IOActive researcher Dan Kaminsky, who worked through the early part of this year with Internet software vendors such as Microsoft, Cisco, and the Internet Systems Consortium to patch the issue.

The companies released a fix for the bug two weeks ago and encouraged corporate users and Internet service providers to patch their DNS systems as soon as possible. Although the problem could affect some home users, it is not considered to be a major issue for consumers, according to Kaminsky. At the time he announced the flaw, Kaminsky asked members of the security research community to hold off on public speculation about its precise nature in order to give users time to patch their systems. Kaminsky had planned to disclose details of the flaw during a presentation at the Black Hat security conference set for Aug. 6.

View: The full story @ InfoWorld


There are 5 additional comments
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Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by Budious on 22 Jul 2008 - 11:42
Let the fun begin! I suggest everyone go hardcode their favorite websites in HOSTS file now
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by The_Decryptor on 22 Jul 2008 - 11:51
I remember reading the details of this flaw on Slashdot as they announced the patches going out.

It's not some super secret thing, remember that fairly popular DNS servers are open source.

Edit: Reposting of the pulled article or some such: http://blogs.buanzo.com.ar/2008/07/matasan...ns-forgery.html
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #3 Posted by craybox on 22 Jul 2008 - 13:57
opendns is already patched thankfully
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #4 Posted by boho on 23 Jul 2008 - 08:20
I wondered why I was reading this in newspapers - even then technology sites did no pick it up on the leak. Collusion never works, it just makes honest people distrust what they read (the Oyster card security flaw is another example).

There should not be a need for cover-ups, if the people who would exploit this sort of weakness (Spammers and Phishers etc.) were hounded - BUT THEY ARE NOT. Chaos is allowed to run rampant on the Internet, there is little excuse for it, other than the authorities PAID to protect us don't care.
Quote this comment Reply to this comment #5 Posted by +Ficman on 23 Jul 2008 - 09:54
Great....
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