What do I need to know about the DNS vulnerability?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

Great! I was just about to ask you that. :)

My current ISP's DNS servers are not vulnerable but the ISP I am about to switch to is vulnerable (I made a friend run that test). So I would inform them.

But my question is how difficult a thing it is for them to apply the patch? Is it just like software updates (or maybe a little more complex) or is it really truly complex thing that an ISP might not have the expertise to implement in reasonable time?

one little difficulty I just experienced, and I'm sure I'm not alone... " Address not available" reply...Hum...Just too many people testing their DNS or has someone disabled the link...or, has my ISP (rogers) blacklisted the address...
George Orwell Lives!

Sorry, I supplied the wrong text on my last email, it should have read:

The page cannot be displayed
The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings. "

Not that it could not find the server. My apologies.

Eld.

Also, I did look at the OPEN DNS info and realized I have not heard why I might not want to stay with it if I choose to switch, and why I might want to switch, DNS issue or not. It looks pretty inviting, but how do they make their money?

Thanks,

Eld. (Orwell Lives!)

Am I to assume this DNS test will not work on a Mac?

My ISP showed good at first test then on the 2nd try showed poor (just a straight line) on the first graph. Called them and they were unable to resovle the address on your e mail.

Ran the test and received a result of Nominum. Is this company proven to be safe or is more time needed to tell? Better to use OpenDNS in the meantime or just sit tight? Thanks!

For Teresa: The DNS problem does affect Macs. The problem is an Internet networking thing, so it affects ALL computers on the Internet.

To those that asked about OpenDNS see

OpenDNS provides added safety for free
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13554_1-9834579-33.html
and
More about OpenDNS, including adult site filtering
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13554_1-9835649-33.html

I tried to use the test; however, all I got was "Failure to connect to Web Server". Didn't matter what time of day. Would this be a Hughesnet thing?

I tried using the test link and received the message, "The requested URL could not be retrieved
---
While trying to retrieve the URL: http://c5daea0164e51ed4f806e1d3.et.dns-oarc.net/

The following error was encountered:

Unable to determine IP address from host name for c5daea0164e51ed4f806e1d3.et.dns-oarc.net
The dnsserver returned:

No Address records
This means that:

The cache was not able to resolve the hostname presented in the URL.
Check if the address is correct.
Your cache administrator is support.
----
Generated Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:17:19 GMT by nocwebrun006.cisp.com (squid/2.5.STABLE11)"
From the preceding notes, I guess I'm not the only one having problems with the link, but the message seems different than others reported.

For the record, I ran the test and had no difficulties: it worked GREAT! ;-)

To post a comment on "What do I need to know about the DNS vulnerability?", please return to that article's main page.