During the analysis of how Internet addresses function, some security experts have discovered that hackers can control over one-third of websites using simple techniques. Therefore, they are calling for a “major overhaul” of the domain name structure to address this issue.
Whenever users visit a website, their computers query one of the “Net directories,” or domain name servers, to determine the location of that site. According to Professor Emin Gun Sirer at Cornell University in the United States, an average of about 46 computers (holding different information about the components of the Net address) are queried to find the actual location of a dotcom site. However, the links between these management systems expose numerous vulnerabilities, making it easy for hackers to exploit and take control.
A research team at Cornell University analyzed nearly 600,000 computers and confirmed that 17% of the servers managing the Net address directory were also affected by normal exploitation through simple command codes.
The website of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States was impacted by this vulnerability. Although the five reference computers pointing to the fbi.gov page were secure, one of them was connected to systems that had not patched previously disclosed vulnerabilities. This computer was fixed after Sirer notified the FBI, but hundreds of thousands of other sites are still facing similar issues.
Sirer asserts that if these exploitations are combined with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, 85% of the Internet could be at risk of being controlled. At that point, users would have no choice but to query website addresses through compromised servers.
“Hackers may have already done this without us even knowing,” Sirer stated. “The domain name system has succeeded beyond our imagination, but nevertheless, it is nearing its end. We need to consider a plan to build a new Internet addressing structure, replacing the current hierarchical structure with a robust and harder-to-control peer-to-peer structure.”
T.N.
