Dan Kaminsky: Black Ops 2008

Published: Oct. 24, 2006, 9:28 p.m.

DNS is at the heart of every network -- when a web site is browsed to, it says where the site is, and when an email is sent, DNS says where to. The answer is usually correct -- but not always. Six months ago, it became clear that there was an ancient design flaw, present in the original 1983 specification for DNS, that would allow any attacker to insert their own addresses for DNS names. An industry wide bug hunt commenced, culminating in a simultaneous release date of patches for virtually all platforms. We will talk about the issue, and about how a partnership between industry competitors and researchers helped protect all our customers.