Broadcaster Al Jazeera Knocked Offline with DNS Attack

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.cio.com/article/715394/Broadcaster_Al_Jazeera_Knocked_Offline_with_DNS_Attack?taxonomyId=3089

By Jeremy Kirk
IDG News Service
September 04, 2012

Websites of broadcaster Al Jazeera were offline as of late Tuesday as 
the media outlet continued to suffered from an attack against Domain 
Name System (DNS) servers.

Al Jazeera's main website was also defaced at one point, according to a 
screenshot captured by Zone-H.org, which tracks website vandalism. A 
group calling itself Al-Rashedon claimed responsibility, displaying a 
Syrian flag and large red stamp reading "Hack."

Babar Mustafa, a senior software engineer with Al Jazeera, wrote on 
Twitter that "DNS [Domain Name System] poisoning issues are being 
resolved by our provider."

ISPs often provide DNS services to their customers. Tampering with DNS 
settings can be particularly harmful, since users can be redirected to a 
fake website even though a correct domain name has been typed into a web 
browser. The type of attack is know as DNS "poisoning."

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