Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. Hyped DNS Exploit reporting helping or hurting?

photo cred­it: kevin­dooley

Head­line: Research­ers unleash DNS attack code
Head­line: Vul­ner­able to a DNS cache pois­on­ing at home?
Head­line: Attack Code Released for New DNS Attack

First off. This is a ser­i­ous issue, make no doubt about it. But is the report­ing hype sur­round­ing this exploit appro­pri­ate? Here’s some quotes of that hype:

Yes­ter­day’s exploit, explained Storms, lets an attack­er pois­on a DNS server­’s cache with a single mali­cious entry, but today’s attack code allows a hack­er to pois­on large quant­it­ies of domains with one fell swoop. “This second exploit has the poten­tial for a much lar­ger impact,” said Storms, “and could res­ult in poten­tially thou­sands of fake addresses inser­ted into a DNS server­’s cache.

There is a secur­ity risk on the hori­zon, accord­ing to experts that work
with com­puters and com­puter net­works, and it is a siz­able one.

A simple DNS Secur­ity Check­list would have sufficed.

1. Become bet­ter informed about this issue. Here’s an over­view of the exploit and what it means to you.
2. Test your DNS ser­vice from your com­puters (Home & Work).
3. If you fail the test, check with your Inter­net Ser­vice Pro­vider to ensure their DNS serv­ers are going to be patched.
4. Con­sider using OpenDNS if you aren’t con­vinced your ISP is hand­ling things correctly.
5. Use a ‘phish­ing aware’ browser such as FireFox3.

That’s it. Peace-of-mind can return.

Or can it? What do you think? Have you tested your DNS? Post your thoughts or res­ults in the com­ments below.